The Nightmare Man's Journey
by Tiro
Summary: Sequel to The Nightmare Man, set ten years later. Under the rule of the Dark Lord Voldemort, much still remains the same. Yet rebels still exist, and they fight to remove Voldemort's ally, the Nightmare Lord. Will they succeed?
1. Chapter 1

**The Nightmare Man's Journey**

 **Summary** : Sequel to The Nightmare Man, set ten years later. Under the rule of the Dark Lord Voldemort, much still remains the same. Yet rebels still exist, and they fight to remove Voldemort's ally, the Nightmare Lord. Will they succeed?

 **Pairing/s** : None.

 **Warnings** : Mentions and descriptions of violence and gore, OOC-characters, dark!Harry, time travel and other such stuff.

It's good if you've read the prequels _The Nightmare Man_ and _Birth of a Nightmare Man_ , or some confusion might occur.

 **Disclaimers** : I don't own Harry Potter, nor do I make any money writing fanfiction.

-o-

The sequel is here! The events in _Fractured Time_ have already happened, and thus there is two Rabastan and two Draco here. I'll try to keep the confusion down. Harrison will refer the two from his original timeline as "his Rabastan" and "his Draco" because yeah, he's possessive.

Enjoy!

-o-

 **Chapter One**

It was a lovely spring day. The sun was warm, the summer not far off, and all was very calm and lovely.

The Nightmare Lord, also known as Harrison, didn't care. What he did care about was the potion he had just poured into a goblet, hoping said goblet wouldn't melt in his hand. The potion was still bubbling away, almost to the point of fizzing. At least the smoke had cleared up, and the affects of said smoke had gone away. The room was only tinted a little bit green.

Alright, so it hadn't completely disappeared, but it was better than twenty minutes ago when the walls were oozing green and everything was slightly off-kilter. Also, there had been strange, buzzing sound. Or was it still there?

"What is in that goblet, master?"

 _Drat_. Harrison looked up, and Elise had already taken her stern stance; feet steady on the ground, hands on her hips and a glare in her silvery eyes. A glare that said that no, he wouldn't be allowed to test the potion on himself.

"If I tell you I wasn't going to drink it, will I escape your nattering?" he asked.

"You were going to drink it."

"Was not," he lied.

"Was too," she replied. "Hand it over, master."

"I've just made it; I don't even know what it does!"

"Excellent point as to why you won't test it."

"Come on, it's just bubbling a little bit," he tried with.

"That's not a little bit, and it smells foul," Elise said. "Also, your eyes are glassy. The smoke alone is affecting you."

"It's gone now."

"So you admit it had an affect?"

Well, he had walked himself into that trap rather easily. So Harrison sighed and handed it over to her before rubbing his eyes. They were itchy.

"Will you be angry if I stab myself in the eyes?" he wondered a minute later when the itch was still there.

"Yes, I will be, master. Go take a walk outside. Poke at the plants in the garden."

"What? _Why_?"

He wasn't good with plants. Unless they were rotten trees that grew Dementors. Then he was very good with plants. Wait, did trees count as plants, or were they just trees?

"Because this is your third potion in the last six hours, and at this point you aren't even trying to make something useful."

She was right, he had just chopped up things to see what would happen if they mixed in a cauldron.

"Severus will be most displeased," Elise continued with.

"He always is when it comes to me and potion-making," Harrison replied.

"It's because you always drink the end results, no matter how sick it makes you."

"The last one wasn't so bad."

"By last one, master, do you mean the one where you passed out and nearly choked on your own vomit?"

Harrison shrugged and replied:

"It could've been worse?"

"How?"

"It could've been blood from my organs dissolving."

"The thing is," Elise interrupted, "is that you have these circles that need to be broken."

"What circles?"

"The circles where you keep trying to die without really thinking about it. You've suffered through those periods before." Harrison opened his mouth to protest and Elise pinned him with a look. "So often, in fact, that we've made a chart. Would you like to see it, master?"

He wouldn't put it past his servants to have made a chart of his reckless abandonment with his life, just to prove a point.

"Fine, I'll take a walk around the garden," he said. "But at least test the potion for me. Not on yourself."

"Will do so, master. I will let you know what it does when you return. Also, there is a letter from Voldemort waiting for you in your room."

"You didn't think it was important to inform me about that first?"

"It specifically says on the envelope that it isn't important," Elise told him.

"Oh… I'll read it later then."

Harrison left the manor through a window, because it was closer than any door and it was his own manor; he could leave it however he wanted. The sun's warmth was enough for him to roll his sleeves up and unbutton his vest, glad to have left his robes in the dungeons.

He didn't think there would come a time where he felt the manor was _quiet_ , but it was. The children were at school, Lucy at Hogwarts and Angel in a Muggle boarding school. He and the servants had tried travelling with Angel back and forth every day for school, but the only transportation she could handle day after day was flying and that took so long Harrison put her in a good boarding school instead. Not that she was alone there; Ywgraine had taken up residence close by, and Harrison himself visited both Angel and Lucy on the weekends. Like a parent. He supposed he was their parent. Their half-crazy, immortal father who experimented on people when he was bored.

Or tried to kill himself, when he didn't find anything else to do. At least he remembered to lock the door when the kids were home.

But yes, the manor was kind of quiet when they were at school. Harry had already graduated and was working at Hogwarts, along with Severus, so they were gone as well. The servants were still there, of course, and so were Rabastan and Draco from his original timeline so he wasn't alone. Never alone.

Also, there was always Fred and George, who had gone on to start a joke shop like they had planned to do; perhaps Fred and George in all dimensions had that idea. Whenever they were home, the manor was never quiet. Those twins didn't know the meaning of quiet. Maybe they did it just to irk him. No, they definitely did it to irk him, and he let them. Towards some people, he had definitely mellowed out.

Harrison shook his head and wandered on. He passed Severus' herb garden, which he didn't touch; Severus entrusted its care to Lucian when he wasn't there himself and Harrison knew his care might as well kill the poor herbs so he just didn't do anything.

Then a vegetable garden, started by Elise. For her picky master, she would say. She said it with fondness too. She roped Angel and Lucy into helping, and forced Harrison to eat things he rather didn't just to make sure that the kids would eat them too.

The sun did help calm him down a little. So he strolled on, thinking of nothing as he set one foot before the other. It was rather soothing to not think for a little bit.

Once he felt better, at least for the moment, he went back inside to read Voldemort's letter. He sat down on the bed as he opened the letter. The parchments held information from meetings in the Ministry, and Harrison pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Politics," he muttered.

He had done little to involve himself. What use was he in politics anyway? He didn't have the tact for it. Voldemort knew how to charm crowds without the usage of fear and raw power. He could manipulate people's words into his own advantage, and Lucius was no amateur at that either. The man had snaked his way to the top, and now when he was Minister, he used silken words to settle ruffled feathers.

Harrison would be more trouble than any help, to be honest. Still, he read through the notes Voldemort had written down for him, in an effort to keep himself somewhat in the loop.

A fraction of the Ministry has begun to rise against the notion of Nightmare Lord, calling his powers and supposed immortality into question. After a mere ten years, they didn't believe he was an immortal being.

Just like old times. Only now it was presenting as a problem; Harrison had allies this time. Allies he had an interest in keeping. Voldemort and Lucius, he considered them his. If this persisted, they would take political damage if the Ministry was split into groups over this little debate.

He would have to start caring about politics, didn't he?

Harrison moaned in despair and fell back on the bed. He hadn't even read all of the information but he knew the gist of the rest from earlier.

Rebels. Damn rebels, still using Albus Dumbledore's name to fight the dark. Dark and light, how ridiculous that such notions still remained. Dark and light magic. Magic was magic. He supposed there were dark spells, but they were dark because they were used to harm people.

He had once believed it himself, that there was a difference. But no, magic was what you shaped it into. Still, people fought in the name of light magic. The good magic. Yes, yes, he had been told using spells that were dark damaged you, and that must be true because he was truly damaged but still… oh, why did he even start thinking about it?

"This is tiring," he informed the ceiling.

"What is?"

He looked at the door. Draco Malfoy, _his_ Draco, leaned against the doorway. Only a few years older than this dimension's Draco, yet profoundly different.

"I hate politics," Harrison told him.

"Who doesn't?" Draco replied and came into the room, hands in his pockets.

"And I hate thinking about dark and light magic."

"There is no such thing as that," Draco said.

"Yes, I know that and you know that but not everyone knows that and by not everyone I mean the rebels don't know that. Or at least, they refuse to acknowledge that."

"They refuse to acknowledge a lot of things. Move over."

"This is my bed."

"I know, now move over."

Harrison moved.

"You're a menace," he informed Draco as Draco sat down next to him. "I hope you know that."

"I'm perfect," Draco scoffed. "I heard about the rebels. They're on the move apparently."

"Aren't they always on the move on the account that our side is chasing them?"

"They're doing something, I mean. Preparing some plan that they probably think will save them, overturn the Ministry and bring back the good, old days."

"My good, old days had a lot of murder and mayhem in them," Harrison said.

"Their good, old days, with Albus Dumbledore being the beacon of light."

"Oh, those days."

"Yes, those. Not that I knew their good, old days. I just knew our good, old days. Not sure how much different they were."

Harrison didn't really know either. He knew mostly how different Harry's life had been from his own. How much better it had been. Harry could still talk about his parents, from when he was smaller. Harrison let him talk. It didn't hurt to hear about them, a set of parents Harrison never knew.

His own most likely hated him, if they had any knowledge what Harrison had done. Both to his own friends, and then later as the Nightmare Lord.

"Now it's getting depressing," he said and sat up. "Don't you have pesky patients to take care of, healer Malfoy?"

"Just got home," Draco said. "Father and mother invited me to dinner."

If Lucius and Narcissa found it strange to have two sons named Draco in their lives, they didn't show it. Instead they had embraced Harrison's Draco, the one that lost his parents to an unknown timeline, in a world he could never get back to. It had surprised Harrison to hear what chaos he had left behind, and he did feel sorry that Draco had lost his parents when they were so close to get to this dimension, all four of them.

"Best that you freshen up then," he said instead of mentioning anything else.

"You won't be lonely?"

"I'm sure I'll manage. You forget I spent a few centuries locked up in a cell, all by myself. Well, me and some dripping water. And a bloody uncomfortable stone chair."

"That's why I'm asking."

Harrison chuckled.

"I'll be fine," he reassured. "There's always someone here to nag at me."

"They only nag because they care," Draco said. "Elise told me about your potion adventures."

"Don't you dare tell Severus."

"Oh, I'll tell him. In great detail."

"You weren't here when I made them," Harrison protested.

"And I can be quite convincing," Draco replied.

"I hate you."

"Sure you do," Draco said and rose up. "Don't be annoying at dinner."

"Annoying is my name," he said and Draco laughed. "Traitor."

"Whatever you say."

-o-

Voldemort didn't announce his visits to Harrison's manor much anymore. The Nightmare Lord was usually at home anyway, and if not, Elise or Lucian knew where he was most of the time and how to get him to come back home quickly (blackmail, mostly).

As it was now, Voldemort found Harrison in a smaller sitting room, book in his hands and a wobbly-looking pile of books balancing on the table next to him. Once he got close enough, Voldemort straightened the pile and Harrison looked up.

"I got your letter," he said. "Politics are boring. How do you stand it?"

"It's a necessary evil to keep a civil world."

"Says the one who started a war."

"I don't want any advice from you. You ignored politics and just killed whatever you felt like killing."

"Point taken. Have a seat. Drink?"

"Please."

Voldemort sat down in another armchair right next to Harrison's, as Harrison put the book on top of the pile before pouring Voldemort a drink. Harrison rarely drank anything alcoholic himself. He could have a drink or two, or get himself roaring drunk, but it was never his first choice of drink.

"Thank you," Voldemort said as he took the glass from Harrison. "Did you read about the rebel situation?"

"Isn't the thing at the Ministry important too? You can't afford different fractions amongst the Ministry personnel."

"It's not that serious yet," Voldemort replied.

"But it's there," Harrison said. "I feel like I have to get involved in politics just to shut up those who doubt me."

"You hate politics."

"Yes, but I do like you and Lucius, and it would be quite rude of me to not help those I consider my allies."

"We'll deal with it in due time. The rebels are getting bolder."

"What else is new?"

"I hate to say this, but that Granger girl isn't bad," Voldemort said. "She has the right mind."

"Oh, I know," Harrison said. "You shouldn't underestimate her, even though she's so young. Even I shouldn't underestimate her. She can have quite a few tricks up her sleeve, and she's ruthless when there's something she wants done."

"You weren't concerned with Fudge, or Dumbledore."

"I was reckless when dealing with them. I have too much at stake nowadays to be that reckless."

"So you admit to your own stupidity?" Voldemort wondered.

"Well, yes, I suppose I do."

Only a century or two from two thousand years old, and Harrison was coming to terms with the fact he was a reckless idiot at times, and that there was something deeply wrong with his mind. He wanted to live, yet sometimes fought half-heartedly in duels and battles to see if someone could kill him.

Like with Fudge, when Fudge still lived. He lost organs, purely because he hadn't fought seriously. Hadn't taken Fudge seriously.

Harrison didn't know if he'd be that reckless in a fight now. He hadn't done much fighting over the last ten years. Maybe he'll say all of that, how he has too much at stake, and yet be as reckless as usual.

Having Lucy and Angel, as well as having Harry, George and Fred hadn't made him stop trying to die. Not even after Draco and Rabastan came through to this dimension had he fully stopped.

"My mind is quite damaged, I believe," Harrison said. "I don't know if I want to live or not."

"As old as you are, I believe it's within your rights to explore those kinds of thoughts."

"I've had those thoughts for a very long time," Harrison said. "But I do believe the years have played their part in my insanity. People aren't meant to live this long."

"Let's not get depressing right now. What would you suggest we do with the rebels?"

"Slaughter them. But you need to find them first."

"They're always on the move," Voldemort said. "However, there's something new."

"That they're getting bolder?"

"Yes, that, and also… they're experimenting with something. Maybe they're trying to create something. A tool against us, or something in that nature."

"Sounds annoying," Harrison said.

"We're mostly focusing on finding them, but if we do… are you willing to give us a hand in that battle?"

It's strange that Voldemort asked. But Harrison had made an effort to not antagonize the Muggle world by being himself and destroying things whenever he felt bored. He tried to do the same with the magical world as well, to the point he sort of understood why people thought he wasn't who he said he was. All those rumours, and the Nightmare Lord had practically lived the last ten years as a shut-in.

"Of course," he replied. "I'll be there."

Neither of them realized at the time, that that was what the rebels were counting on.

 _To be continued…_

* * *

First chapter complete!

Chapter two: The rebels make a move, and their target is the Nightmare Lord.

See you later,

Tiro


	2. Chapter 2

**The Nightmare Man's Journey**

 **Summary** : Sequel to The Nightmare Man, set ten years later. Under the rule of the Dark Lord Voldemort, much still remains the same. Yet rebels still exist, and they fight to remove Voldemort's ally, the Nightmare Lord. Will they succeed?

 **Pairing/s** : None.

 **Warnings** : Mentions and descriptions of violence and gore, OOC-characters, dark!Harry, time travel and other such stuff.

It's good if you've read the prequels _The Nightmare Man_ and _Birth of a Nightmare Man_ , or some confusion might occur.

 **Disclaimers** : I don't own Harry Potter, nor do I make any money writing fanfiction.

-o-

Finally it's out! It's slow going, but hopefully you guys don't mind.

Now, enjoy this chapter.

 _This story occurs five years after the events of Fractured Time._

-o-

 **Chapter Two**

While Harry worked at Hogwarts, he still came back home from time to time when he wasn't on patrol to make sure no kids were up past the curfew. He usually didn't give Harrison a heads-up so when Harrison came up from the dungeons a few days after Voldemort's visit Harry was in the kitchen, trying to see what Lucian was cooking.

"Harrison!"

"You're home," Harrison said to Harry. "I thought you liked the food at Hogwarts?"

"I do, but I felt like coming back for the night."

"It's not long until school lets out for the summer."

"So that means I shouldn't visit?"

"I hardly think you miss us that much," Harrison said. "Besides, the twins go to Hogwarts fairly often."

"Yeah, but you don't."

"I go sometimes."

"Alright, so I heard about the rebels and I guess I just wanted to see you right now?"

"I'm fine," Harrison told Harry. "Come on, you haven't changed out of the robes you teach in. Aren't they uncomfortable?"

He pulled Harry out of the kitchen and had him change before they had dinner with Lucian, since he was the only servant home for the moment. Elise had gone out to collect some potion ingredients for Severus, the Weasley twins were off doing whatever they wanted for fun and the other servants all had errands to run.

"I thought it was quieter than usual. Their own errands?" Harrison asked.

"More or less," Lucian replied.

"Oh, good. I feared my memory had gone away for a moment there."

"Your memory does go away when it wants," Lucian told him.

"Thank you for making me feel old."

"You _are_ old," Harry said.

"Hush you. Hang on, where's my Rabastan and Draco?" Harrison said.

"Draco fire-called from the hospital, saying he'd be late, and Rabastan went there to keep him company," Lucian said. "They'll be back later."

So apparently it was just the three of them for dinner, which was a bit unusual but Harry used the time to start grilling Harrison on what he knew about the rebels.

"I mainly know what Voldemort tells me about them," Harrison said. "Haven't really gone out of my way to find things out on my own, since he has official Ministry members doing that. Are you that worried about them, Harry?"

"I've heard rumours," Harry replied. "Also, they… I know Hermione and Ron. Hermione is smart, and people underestimate Ron too much so they usually never see him coming."

"He's good with strategies, right?" Harrison said. "Don't forget I had my own Ron back in the days. He was good with that."

"Yeah. Yeah, he is. So together they can wreck havoc. And you shouldn't underestimate the others either. Their hatred fuels their power."

"Oh, I know about that part very well," Harrison said. "Hatred is very powerful. I suppose they hate everything but themselves and their cause right now."

"I also heard about the problems in the Ministry, about you. People don't believe the stories. I've even heard students talk about, how you're a fraud."

"Well, that's not new. It comes and goes. I just have to establish I have the power I boast about, and people will shut up for a couple of decades before the whole debate starts over again."

It was like many things in history. Rinse and repeat. Not down to the details, but the gist of it. Harrison pushed the plate away and leaned back, well aware Harry and Lucian watched him. Lucian doubly so, since he hadn't finished his food yet.

"Why must history be so boring and repetitive?" he asked.

"I don't know," Harry said. "I haven't lived long enough to see that."

"Master…"

"I'm just thinking out loud, Lucian. We better wait and see how Voldemort fares in finding the rebels."

"We could help with the search," Lucian said. "Or conduct a separate search."

"No, we'll wait. No need to upset Ministry personnel more than necessary until we show them I'm really the one from the stories. I've done that before, haven't I?"

"You have proven to people you still exist, yes, but people generally didn't believe you were immortal. The founders of Hogwarts knew, and a few students I suppose but it got lost with time."

"Too bad I can't just do a spell that lets everyone know that I'm real, immortal and evil so they also learn to not annoy me," Harrison said.

"What kind of spell?" Harry wondered.

"Maybe one when they're given illusions that I tear out their children's hearts and me telling them if they don't believe me I'll come there and do it for real."

Harry stared at him, before saying:

"… You should come with a warning label."

"We made one seven years ago," Lucian offered. "Master didn't find it funny."

"You wanted it pinned on my shirts, of course it wasn't funny!"

"It was a bit funny," Lucian said.

"How come I never heard about that?" Harry asked.

"I made them swear not to," Harrison said. "You just broke that, Lucian."

"It's been seven years."

Harrison could argue some more, but felt it was unnecessary. Harry already knew, and it was a little bit funny but he wasn't about to let them know he felt that. Instead he got his plate back and finished the food, if only to keep Lucian from worrying about him.

"No trouble at school?" Harrison asked Harry after a little while.

"Everything's fine. Some of the students are children of rebels, hard not to be, but we work very hard on not having the children fighting wars amongst themselves," Harry told him. "Severus says hello."

"So they don't fight?"

"Oh, they do, we can't stop every fight. Some of the children don't like me because I sided with you and they learned from their parents that that's bad. Some doesn't like Severus, because he's your servant and apparently that's even worse."

"Hate is easy. You don't need to understand other people if you just simply hate everything. Believe me, I know that very well. Are they giving you personal trouble?"

"No. They don't say a thing to my face, Harrison, they say it when they think I can't hear them."

That was not unusual either. Harry didn't look troubled by it, but Harrison made a note of asking Severus if Harry showed him another side. Harry probably knew Harrison was all too quick to respond, usually by torture or death, and didn't want that to happen to the children.

It showed Harry had at least learnt a few things about Harrison over the last ten years.

"Well then," Harrison said. "Let's finish eating and then do something fun."

"My kind of fun," Harry said.

"… Fine. Your kind of fun. I didn't have any prisoners at home anyway."

-o-

Just like Voldemort didn't announce his visits to Harrison, Harrison didn't announce it to Voldemort. Most Death Eaters were used to seeing him come and go, and never stopped him.

This time, it was Bellatrix that he met at the door. Ten years ago, that would have been a cause for concern, or at least mild annoyance on both their parts. Turns out getting tortured by one of Harrison's tricks had been the best thing to happen to Bellatrix when it came to the relationship between her and the Nightmare Lord.

Meaning, one day he had stumbled onto her torturing someone, gave her a few pointers and taught her a new spell. They had sort of worked together, he hadn't even asked why she was torturing the man but at the end said man was dead and they were both rather pleased with the outcome. He remembered she had turned to him and had a good look.

"Does this mean we're friends now?" Bellatrix had asked.

"Are you going to attack me again?"

"Seems rather stupid," she replied.

"Then I suppose we are friends."

So now, meeting Bellatrix was a more pleasant experience. She backed away from the door to let him enter and said:

"The lord isn't in at the moment. He had to meet up with Lucius at the Ministry."

"Serious business?"

"You business. People are annoying."

"Oh, the ones who don't believe I'm immortal?" She nodded. "Good riddance. Must I destroy a town for them to realize I'm for real? Have the Inferi march through the streets of London? Or perhaps have the Dementors play with them."

"The marching sounds nice," Bellatrix said as they walked further inside Voldemort's manor. "But unfortunately not what lord Voldemort wishes for."

"Yes, I know. He wants to stay away from the Muggle world. That's why I haven't done much for ten years; I've been trying to keep that promise to him."

"I suppose that's a kind gesture. I'm surprised you've managed to keep it."

"Oh, believe me, it's been trying at times. I've been very bored."

"Well…" She twirled her wand. "If we take some people from another country, it should be fine, yes?"

"See, I like that kind of thinking," Harrison said. "Might as well do that instead of just sitting and reading a book while waiting for him to return. We go and get two each?"

"Sounds like a plan," Bellatrix said with a grin.

Oh yes, it was much easier to be friends with her. Harrison got someone outside his servants who enjoyed torturing as much as he did. Also, unlike his servants, she was mostly insane. Just like him.

Voldemort didn't even ask where they got the four people from when he did come home and found them finishing things up.

"Just get rid of the bodies properly," was his only request.

"I'll feed them to my garden, it's alright," Harrison reassured. "You look tired."

"And you have blood on your face. How come you both have blood on your faces?"

"The blood accidentally landed on us?" Bellatrix said.

"What did you do to make the blood _accidentally_ land… never mind; I can imagine what the two of you did."

Harrison had the bodies transported away before cleaning himself off roughly and following Voldemort.

"We haven't found the rebels yet," Voldemort told him. "Which is annoying; for ten years they have evaded us. Also, the leaders are children."

"Everyone is a child in my eyes, but I know what you mean," Harrison said. "Granger is called the brains of them, isn't she? She's a clever girl."

"Annoying one."

"Just because you haven't managed to catch her."

"Yes, hence annoying," Voldemort said and let Harrison enter the office first.

"The thing at the Ministry then?"

"Something must be done there," Voldemort admitted. "There are fractions within the Ministry. People are divided. Also, one individual who supports Lucius still rejects the idea of you, and seems convinced you have tricked both me and Lucius. Several seem to believe him."

"Sounds like you are dealing with idiots then," Harrison replied. "I could always go there and rip out my own heart if it convinces them I'm immortal at least."

"Let's hope we don't need to go that far."

Harrison wasn't so sure it would work any other way.

-o-

Hermione Granger wasn't stupid. She knew with the majority of the Ministry on Voldemort's side, the rebels wouldn't make it much longer.

Unless they dealt Voldemort a heavy blow, which was what she had been working on for the better part of the last ten years. Mainly she and Ron had worked on it, ever since Dumbledore died and Harry sided with the enemy. She knew he hadn't been lured, that he had willingly gone to the Nightmare Lord because he felt _safer_ with that monster.

She knew, but didn't understand. She also knew better than to try talking Harry into coming back to them, and thus avoided him at all cost because where Harry was, the Nightmare Lord himself or his servants weren't far behind. She couldn't afford to be captured.

It had taken ten years, but she believed she had it now. A definitive move against Voldemort's side.

"You're really sure this will work?" Ron asked her.

"Yes. As long as we can get the Nightmare Lord close enough," she said. "Have we got enough?"

"Thirty," Ron said. "That should be enough, right?"

"If it isn't, we'll withdraw, regroup, and try with a higher number."

She wasn't going to stick around if it didn't work. No one stuck around the Nightmare Lord and lived to tell the tale if you were his enemy. Admittedly, he had been quiet for the most part of the last ten years but she would never allow herself to forget exactly what he was. An ancient monster.

It wasn't going to be easy to lure him. To get him isolated. She knew he was surrounded by his servants, his slaves some called them, and worse, the Dementors. The Inferi he controlled were bad news, but they weren't that close to him in battles. He used them to scare people, successfully too, but she hadn't seen them in years.

Just like she hadn't seen the Nightmare Lord in years. But according to those who have seen him, he hadn't aged so it shouldn't be hard locating him on a battlefield.

"Now it's just getting him there," Ron said. "To a fight. He hasn't been to one in a long while."

"Let's hope the trouble we've caused is enough to make Voldemort ask him for some assistance."

"Voldemort's handled us with the Ministry so far."

"Yes, but the Ministry has started to fall apart."

It wasn't even the rebels that had done that; it was the existence of the Nightmare Lord himself. They didn't believe in him, some of the Ministry personnel. Didn't believe he was as old as he claimed, or as strong. Hermione wasn't sure how much she believed, but she knew he was a danger that had to be removed. While he wasn't actively fighting them, he was too strong of an ally for the Voldemort to call upon. They already had enough trouble with Voldemort.

Getting rid of the Nightmare Lord wouldn't make the rebels win the long fight. But it would certainly help.

-o-

On a rainy morning, the rebels and Voldemort's forces clashed together. At Voldemort's side there was Harrison as well, with only Elise and Lucian fighting side by side with him. He didn't have any of the Dementors with him, not seeing the point when Voldemort had called upon him earlier.

The rebels weren't an organisation, or an order like Dumbledore's Phoenix Order had been. It was a mass of people who didn't agree to what had happened ten years ago, and continued to fight it. They could be ordinary people in their everyday life, and even work within the Ministry.

He saw several of the rebels wear masks, which told him they didn't want to be recognized. That meant they probably could be recognized; perhaps they even had families. That meant they could work at the Ministry, and bring information to the rebels.

Harrison decided to take out those who wore masks. They could be the most troublesome, if they had some sort of position that in the long run would threaten Lucius or Voldemort.

They weren't difficult to fight. Most had fighting experience, but didn't stand a chance against him. Few did, when he fought seriously. It didn't take long before he grew bored with the fighting, and became sloppy. Sloppy while he mentally told himself to remain alert. Sloppiness meant higher risk of injury. Higher risk of injury meant higher risk of him collapsing from blood loss and ending up taken prisoner by the rebels.

That would be very embarrassing.

Someone came from behind, and Harrison twisted around. But then two approached from behind once he had already turned, and he found himself in a dance with ten people attacking from all sides. They were fast, and good at blocking his spells. He travelled in short bursts, but soon found himself being herded.

He didn't like that, and broke free. One of them stopped, and pulled off their mask. Ron Weasley threw the mask to the side, and Harrison stopped.

Most people didn't know about him being Harry Potter from another dimension. His Rabastan and Draco were easily explained away. People didn't want to think about complicated things. The rebels didn't know either. Ron Weasley didn't know the Nightmare Lord had his own Ron, had killed that Ron, and wouldn't mind killing another Ron.

But he waited. It was stupid to do so; however, perhaps he could find out what the rebels were up to. He took a look around him; none of the others were moving to attack. A few had removed their masks. To them, they probably thought he wouldn't know their names.

It wasn't hard to place Ginny, or Neville, and definitely no trouble placing Luna. They all looked like he remembered them, as old as those memories were. That left Hermione out though; was she nearby?

"No attacks?" he asked. "I'm disappointed."

"You won't be for long," Luna said.

None of her cryptic words for him, none of her gentleness. He didn't blame her, naturally; he was the enemy. The bad man. They were the good guys in their eyes. Now, Harrison knew he had done all sorts of wrong things for a long time, and people were well within their rights to hate his guts on principle alone. Just because he wasn't attacking and destroying villages now didn't mean people should stop fearing, or hating him.

He'd be disappointed if people did. If they suddenly turned around from hating him, to tolerating or even liking him due to the fact he wasn't slaughtering people publicly anymore.

What? His gardens needed blood, and he got bored occasionally. It wasn't public slaughter if the person just disappeared. Loads of people went missing every day. So what if he was the cause of it every now and then?

They moved, but stopped once they realized he wouldn't move. He wasn't frightened by them. He was a bit curious, which was why he didn't move away. He wondered where Elise and Lucian had gone. Oh well, they could handle themselves.

Someone's wand was shaking, one still wearing a mask. Harrison tilted his head and wondered if he should frighten that one. Perhaps kill him, or her. It was hard to make out, since they wore robes that concealed most of the body.

"Now!" Ron yelled all of a sudden.

The spells were binding spells, and so Harrison dodged. One of his legs got stuck to the ground, but Harrison sorted that by breaking his femur and ripping the leg away. The pain was minor, and he moved in shadows to let the bone heal so he could stand again.

They didn't stop coming. Ron in particular was intent on having him move. So they had a plan? Was it just for him? Had they perhaps caused enough trouble so that Voldemort would call on Harrison? In a way, he was flattered. They still considered him that much of a threat?

He didn't realize he had gone exactly where they wanted until he felt the magic, and an overwhelming sense of emptiness.

Power surged behind him, and he turned to look. He found himself staring, unable to move. His eyes traced over every part of this… this _thing._

He stared at the legs, and the arms, and torsos. Of hands and feet and heads. Parts of human bodies. How many; twenty? More? They formed an archway, with a Veil gently moving inside of said archway. How had they done it? If they weren't in the middle of a battle, Harrison would've loved to sit them down and ask how had they _manifested_ a Veil? He didn't think it was possible.

Hermione was there. She was pale and ragged, but the fire still burned in her eyes. So stubborn. Were all Hermiones so stubborn? Could Harrison travel to a thousand dimensions and meet the same stubbornness in that girl? It was to be commended, that she was fighting so fiercely, so unwavering of her own beliefs in this world.

They wanted him to go through, didn't they? They wanted to lure him through the Veil. He heard it was instant death for everyone; he had seen it with Sirius, back when he was young. Would the instant death include Harrison though? He who Death had rejected for so many years?

"Get him through!" Hermione yelled.

Yes, they weren't being subtle anymore. He had no intentions of pleasing them, and moved further away instead. They still chased after him. Not Hermione though. She was doing something, when he looked back. Her arms moved, her wand in precise movements, and the magic shimmered around her.

The archway was gone, and he took a double-take. Then, too late, he heard the murmurs of voices. He was still travelling, still running, and looked to see the Veil only a few feet away from him. She had transported it even! It shouldn't be possible, as little as he knew about the Veil it felt it shouldn't be possible to do.

Harrison tried to stop himself. For all the times he wished for death during his long life, he didn't want to die by enemy hands. For all that he was sloppy and drank poisons, he had something new in his life. The children. Angel and Lucy; even Harry. They were his to take care of, and he didn't want to leave them. Them, and friends who travelled through to another dimension to find him. Servants who loved him, despite all the horrible and cold things he had done throughout his long existence.

 _I don't want to die_.

He had already touched the Veil by the time he thought that, and was pulled through. One hand managed to grab onto the archway on the side of life, but didn't hold on for more than a few moments before the grip slackened and he was fully pulled through.

-o-

Voldemort heard Elise scream. He had never before heard her scream like that. It was a howl with no words, and when he found her she was bent over, clutching herself like she was wounded. But she didn't bleed anywhere. When she looked up, her eyes had lost most of its silvery sheen.

"Master," she gasped. "Something happened to master! His magic vanished!"

"Look for the Nightmare Lord!" he commanded two Death Eaters, one of them being Bellatrix.

They nodded and moved swiftly over the battlefield. Voldemort saw the rebels leaving, and felt dread settle somewhere in his stomach. So soon after something had happened to Harrison? That was no coincidence.

When Lucian came to Elise, Voldemort stared. The man's hair was turning to another colour, and the marks on his skin were fading. He seemed to be in a panic about it.

"Master's magic," Lucian stammered to Elise. "It's going away!"

Bellatrix came back.

"My lord," she said. "There's a… there's a Veil. The last traces of Harrison's magic were there."

"A Veil? There is no Veil here!"

"It seems to have been manifested. In an archway made out of bodies."

"Take me there," Elise commanded.

She had straightened up and looked almost normal. Except for the fact her eyes barely had any silver in them. Lucian whimpered as a mark on his hand completely disappeared.

"Go back to the manor," Elise told Lucian. "Check on the others. Contact Harry, Rabastan and Draco. The new servants… they're worse off than us, most likely."

Lucian nodded, and soon Apparated while Bellatrix led the way to the Veil. Voldemort couldn't believe his eyes when he saw it. How had the rebels done this?

"Is this possible?" Bellatrix asked. "Well, I can see it's here… but should it even be possible?"

"Apparently," Voldemort said. "Keep away from it."

He didn't like Veils. It was death. It was a gateway to death, with no way to return back to the world of the living. Voldemort pulled out his wand, and cast a few spells to find the traces of Harrison's familiar magic. Bellatrix was right; the trace ended around the Veil.

"He was pulled through," Voldemort said. "Or he managed to travel just before. But you felt as if his magic just vanished, Elise?"

"It's like…" Elise held out a hand, as if to test the air. "It feels like master doesn't even exist. I never realized… I could always feel him. Now there's nothing. It's quiet, and empty, that part where master always was inside of me."

Voldemort saw the tears trickle down Elise's cheeks. He didn't comment, out of respect.

"Can falling through a Veil kill him?" he asked.

"That's the one thing master has never tried," Elise said. "I don't know."

That was the one thing Voldemort didn't want to hear her say. He looked back at the Veil. It was thin fabric. It looked harmless.

But had it just killed the Nightmare Lord?

 _To be continued…_

* * *

Chapter three: What happens to Harrison's servants? Where has Harrison gone?

See you later,

Tiro


	3. Chapter 3

**The Nightmare Man's Journey**

 **Summary** : Sequel to The Nightmare Man, set ten years later. Under the rule of the Dark Lord Voldemort, much still remains the same. Yet rebels still exist, and they fight to remove Voldemort's ally, the Nightmare Lord. Will they succeed?

 **Pairing/s** : None.

 **Warnings** : Mentions and descriptions of violence and gore, OOC-characters, dark!Harry, time travel and other such stuff.

It's good if you've read the prequels _The Nightmare Man_ and _Birth of a Nightmare Man_ , or some confusion might occur.

 **Disclaimers** : I don't own Harry Potter, nor do I make any money writing fanfiction.

-o-

Writer's block, oh, how I hate writer's block.

Still, I managed to get a new chapter out. Funny thing is, I have thought a lot about our Nightmare Lord, but didn't manage to write anything decent down for a long time.

Enjoy!

-o-

 **Chapter Three**

Voldemort tried to keep the meeting about the rebels short at the Ministry, wanting to go over to Harrison's manor to talk to Elise some more, when people commented about Harrison's absence. Not like they saw him very often anyway.

"He's indisposed at the moment," was Voldemort's most diplomatic response.

A man snorted. Surprisingly alike Cornelius Fudge in looks, Voldemort only knew him as Morton. He supported Lucius and Voldemort, but made it quite clear that he saw Harrison as a fraud who had tricked them. He was most likely one of the people who had started the whole debate about Harrison's credibility as Nightmare Lord, and his immortality.

Had everything about Harrison been resolved with Morton's death, then Voldemort would have killed him ages ago. As it stood, Voldemort would earn nothing on his death, and thus had to wait.

"Is that what this so-called lord told you, lord Voldemort?" Morton asked.

"No, that's what I know," Voldemort replied. "I will need to talk to his servants very soon."

That didn't deter some of the people to wanting continue the meeting about the rebels. Voldemort knew the entire fight was most likely to lure Harrison there, and he was regretting ever asking Harrison for his assistance.

At last he could escape, leaving the last few questions up to Lucius, and immediately Apparated to Harrison's manor. Once he arrived outside of it, he thought it looked… a bit dimmer? A bit more like it was really old. A few stones had begun to crumble.

Harrison's magic was slowly disappearing, he realized. Age was catching up to the manor's exterior. He quickly moved inside.

Elise was the only one in the hall, and turned around as he came through the doors. She looked even more tired than before.

"What is happening?" Voldemort asked.

"Master's magic is keeping us… us. His. Keeping us as his. With the magic gone, we… aren't as strong. We live thanks to his magic."

"That means…?"

"The twins and Severus have collapsed," she continued. "They aren't dead, they're still breathing, but their energy is drained. Draco is having a look at them."

She led the way, walking there in silence and slightly hunched over. Voldemort had never seen her in that kind of state.

Three beds had been put into one of the sitting rooms, and Harrison's Draco was bent over Fred at the moment.

"Barely any magical signal," Draco concluded as they came up to him. "They're in a coma. I can't wake them from it, and I think that's for the best. They don't seem to get any worse, but they're not getting better either."

"It will continue then, I suppose," Elise said.

"Yes."

"But it will take a bit more time for the older ones?"

"Most likely," Draco said. "I can't tell how long though. Conserve your magic, Elise. Don't overdo it."

"The manor's exterior…" she began.

"Let it crumble," he told her. "Harrison wouldn't like it if you disappeared just to keep the manor going."

"This is his home."

"A home can be rebuilt," Draco said. "Teach Rabastan about the wards. Have him and Harry cast some temporary magic to keep the manor out of sight, and standing. I'll assist where I can."

"I'll help them with the wards," Voldemort said. "Wouldn't want him to come back to a pile of rubble; I'd never hear the end of his complaints."

He said it, almost jokingly like Harrison would have approved of, but could a person come back from behind the Veil?

Could Harrison come back?

-o-

Voldemort never thought much about the children Harrison had taken. Sure, he saw them every once in a while. Lucy and Angel, running around the manor and clinging onto people. Well, not Voldemort, but Angel liked to cling to Harrison. He was her favourite, that Voldemort knew. She seemed to care for everyone in the manor, but it was always Harrison she ran to whenever she had questions or simply wanted to fly. She probably knew he would rarely deny her anything.

The next time Voldemort came to Harrison's manor, a week after Harrison had gone through the Veil, Angel was there. She sat on the steps leading upstairs, a slightly battered plush toy in her arms. One that Harrison had bought her, no doubt, since out of all the caring and love that he did understand, material things was the easiest for him to use to show he cared. She looked up once Voldemort entered with Lucius.

"They said Uncle Harrison's gone away for a while," Angel said and rose up.

She had never really talked to either of them before.

"Yes, he has," Voldemort said.

"They think I don't realize things just because I'm Muggle and can't feel magic like they can," she continued. "But I knew something was wrong, even before Ywgraine came and collected me. Said it was a family emergency and I had to be excused for the rest of the term."

Perhaps hanging around one of the oldest people in the world was bound to leave a mark even on a Muggle girl.

"They still won't tell me where Uncle Harrison went. But I know it's bad. Lucian looks sick, and weird, and I found him sitting outside Uncle Harrison's bedroom just now."

She looked down at the plush toy, hugging it for a moment. What must it be like, to be the only Muggle surrounded by witches and wizards? Hearing about Dementors, sensing their cold but not being able to see them? What was it like now, knowing something was wrong and the person she always turned to was just… gone?

"He'll come back," Voldemort said, unable to say anything else.

"He better come back soon. Everyone's acting weird and won't tell me a thing. Or they tell lies. Uncle Harrison never lies to me at least. Even when others tell him he should."

With that, she walked away from them and disappeared into a room down the hall. Draco showed up not long after that, spotting them and saying:

"The servants are resting. Well, all but Lucian; I'm trying to find him."

"Angel said he was outside Harrison's room," Voldemort said.

"Him too?"

"What do you mean?" Lucius wondered.

"It's almost like they're taking turns, the servants who can move," Draco said. "As if he will be there all of a sudden… but he's not."

"How's the manor holding up?"

"With the temporary ward stones you helped make, it's standing. Can't do much about the outside though."

The stones of the manor's exterior were still there, but chipped and cracked. The manor itself used to be dark, but now the stones were just grey. Like it was abandoned. Until you came inside, at least; inside, so far, it still looked like normal.

"Elise, how many times do I have to tell you to lie down?"

Draco's voice pulled Voldemort's attention back to the hall, and to Elise who was standing a few feet away. She looked hollow, pale skin and sunken eyes, but there was still fire in her gaze.

"Nothing?" she asked him.

"No," Voldemort said, and he felt genuinely sorry for having to say that.

He wished he had something. A solution. A plan at least. Now he didn't even have the slightest idea how to fix this.

"I figured," she said. "Angel wants to know where he is. I can't tell her the truth, even though she knows we're all lying."

"What about Lucy?"

"She's at Hogwarts," Elise said. "Harry is keeping an eye on her."

"And who's keeping an eye on Harry?" Voldemort asked.

It was easy to forget it, since Harry was already a professor and seen as an adult, but he had been a teen when Harrison took him. Saved him from the good people. It was funny, because they had been good people. Even Dumbledore, in his own way. Harrison was truly the opposite, and yet Harry felt saved by him.

Harrison had become his mentor, and losing that mentor would take a toll on Harry, adult or not.

"Rabastan," Draco said. "He simply planted himself in Harry's rooms there at Hogwarts and refused to move until Harry gave in."

"Rabastan is alright with Harrison's disappearance?"

"Not at all," Draco replied. "He just wants to keep busy so he doesn't have to think about possibly losing his friend a second time."

"So he'll look after Harry and Lucy?" Voldemort said.

"More or less."

"And you?" Voldemort asked Draco.

"I'll survive," Draco said. "I'm sure he'll come back. He'll have to."

"Have to?"

Draco glanced at Elise, whose lips thinned out.

"Without master, we will probably cease to function," she said. "Perhaps not die, not yet anyway, but fall into a coma, unable to do anything… you know it's already started. Shortly after the twins and Severus, Christian followed. They were the most recent servants."

Voldemort nodded.

"I've set aside a team that is looking for Granger and Weasley specifically," he said at last. "They probably know the most about the Veil they manage to raise."

"Is that even possible?" Draco wondered.

"No, it shouldn't," the dark lord said and rubbed his forehead. "Everyone I have asked tells me it's impossible, so I don't know… if it's a true Veil. But it gives off the same feeling. The same feeling of death on the other side."

The created Veil made his skin crawl just as much as the other Veil he had seen, at the Ministry. So no one could say it wasn't a Veil. Voldemort moved from rubbing his forehead to scrubbing his face with a heaving sigh.

"Well, they've made a right mess of us," Voldemort said. "The rebels must be celebrating having thrown us into chaos so easily."

"You'd think Harrison's disappearance wouldn't cause such ripples through the Ministry, since he rarely was involved in politics," Draco said.

"The crack was already there," Voldemort replied. "His absence has just made some people more convinced he wasn't real, and caused the crack to widen."

"It's history repeating itself in that manner," Elise said, resting against the wall. "People would fear master, and then… then they'd forget. He would remind them, and they would know… only to forget again. It kept on and on like that. People knew he was immortal, and then forgot. He reminded them and they knew for a while. Then he had to remind them again. In the end, he stopped reminding them. He grew tired of it."

Who wouldn't be tired of having to remind people again and again about oneself? Other dark lords were remembered because they set out for it; Harrison might have liked it in the past, but hadn't set out to become one of those who were told about for centuries to come. Having been captured hadn't helped; it had only ensured the Ministry could try to erase his existence even more, until even the Ministry itself mostly forgot him.

"Well, it's not working out in our favour this time. When he gets back, I would love for him to give the doubters at the Ministry a reminder why you shouldn't underestimate him."

Voldemort wasn't sure how far the crack ran, how much work would have to be done in order to get the Ministry functioning properly, but figured he could let it slide a little bit to the side as he focused on a way to bring Harrison back, as well as finding the rebels.

He couldn't rely on Harrison's servants. Elise, being his first one, already looked exhausted. Four of them were in a coma. How long would it take for others to follow? Voldemort didn't know how old the others were, only that Elise and Lucian were roughly the same age as Harrison. A century or so younger.

How much magic was draining from them for Elise to look this weak already? Or was she focusing on keeping the manor together, despite Draco's warning?

She seemed to take great pride in always getting Harrison what he wanted and needed. She took pride in taking care of her master's home. Was she so stubborn, that she would still try to keep the manor looking decent until Harrison came back?

Voldemort kept thinking _when,_ because he didn't want to consider _if_ Harrison came back.

-o-

The rebels had had little to celebrate over the years. The crack in the Ministry, people dividing themselves, had been a welcome relief. Of course a few rebels had tried to start it, but even people who agreed with Voldemort seemed into the idea that the Nightmare Lord was a fraud.

Hermione knew he wasn't. She had seen some of the information about the Nightmare Lord after Dumbledore had been killed. But the fact that even Voldemort's supporters thought the Nightmare Lord was fake was so welcomed she encouraged the rebels to agree and cause more chaos.

Now though… now they had something to celebrate. Hermione knew it had been a wild idea. Creating a Veil was practically unheard of, and she hadn't been confident that one would form. But it had, against all odds, against all the things that made sense, and the Nightmare Lord had been pulled through.

He seemed to remain gone. Three weeks had passed, and Hermione got reports back that the lord truly seemed to be gone.

"I can't believe we did it," Ron said.

"We aren't done yet," she replied. "But this was more important than they seemed to realize. His absence, and continued absence, will drive the crack deeper through the Ministry's personnel. We might even have Malfoy thrown off the Minister post."

"We still have a lot to do," Ginny said.

The rebels were led by young people. Hermione and Ron, of course, but also Ginny, Neville and Luna. They were the leaders people reported to, even the older ones. Perhaps because they were some of the few people who had survived the battle at Hogwarts ten years earlier, the battle where Dumbledore lost his life.

Some days, Hermione wished more had survived. She felt it was an incredible hard position, giving orders and trying to survive. They could never relax. You also never knew when a rebel would grow tired, and wanted to return to a normal life. She had to make sure they could never reveal any of the hideouts, or any plans they might have heard because a few former rebels had gone to the dark, gone to Malfoy or even Voldemort himself, in order to get a better position in life.

So they had learnt to be ruthless against those who wanted to leave. Hermione hated that, but knew it was necessary. That didn't stop her from wishing more adults had survived. She wished Dumbledore had survived.

But there was no point in wishing too often, so she usually pushed those thoughts away.

"What will we do now?" Luna wondered.

"The Ministry seems to be falling apart without our help," Hermione said. "But we need to get a good candidate for Minister if Malfoy falls out of favour."

"How are we going to deal with Voldemort?" Neville said.

"We'll have to trap him like we did with the Nightmare Lord."

"Are you absolutely certain that he won't be able to come back?" Neville continued.

"I can't say a hundred percent sure, but it's been three weeks without a single sight of him. None of his servants has been seen either."

She hoped he was gone.

She hoped that the Veil had taken the Nightmare Lord to the only place he deserved to be; in the afterlife.

-o-

The afterlife was a fickle thing. It was peaceful, for the most part, but not everyone who had ever died was gathered on a single plane of existence. No, most of them had their own sphere of peacefulness. Their own, private world where none of the troubles that had haunted them in life could get to them.

Some gathered. Others remained alone. They lived there, ever on, as the world turned and time moved on without them.

There was always limbo, but limbo had no place in the afterlife. Limbo was the place between the living and the dead, for those who couldn't move on. For those who weren't allowed to move on.

Severus Snape was alone, in a world where he had nothing else on his mind but potions and reading. It was his version of peace, and he needed no company, nor did he particularly wish for any. If his soul sometimes was called to the living world, helped by a stone and a certain man, he had no complaints of it. Seeing Harry Potter so changed, seeing Potter as a dark lord, was somewhat soothing to Severus' mind. As long as he was called, he knew Potter, or Harrison now as he insisted to be called, was alive. He watched the man sometimes, but hadn't for a while. He didn't know what had happened, and continued his afterlife temporarily ignorant of the whole ordeal.

Fred and George were always together, but alone in their world. They wanted no visits from former friends and their family, who despised Harry Potter with all their might. The twins liked Harry, now Harrison, enough to watch over him daily. They knew what had happened, and worried. Worried to the point they contemplated to leave their peaceful world, and walk into the unknowns of the afterlife to try and see if Harrison had ended up somewhere there.

Hermione Weasley lived on in the afterlife. She lived the sweet, calm life she didn't quite have time to experience before her life was ended. She had her husband, and her children, and family who visited. It was peaceful in a way her life hadn't been, at least not since she entered the magical world.

Sometimes she entertained the thought; what if she hadn't entered the magical world? What if she had just simply carried on with a normal, Muggle life? She didn't think of it often, as she knew if she hadn't entered the magical world she wouldn't have Ron, or her children.

But then again, if she hadn't entered the magical world, maybe she would have lived a longer life. Maybe she would have had friends who hadn't died. So many around her had died, before she herself died. They had died at the hands of someone she had once considered a friend. Someone she had thrown away. She did admit to that.

That didn't make him less of a murderer.

Hermione tried not to think about him too often. It was painful and unnecessary when it was unlikely she would ever run into him in the afterlife.

At least, that's what she thought…

It was a conscious thought to move between people's afterlives. If she wanted to see Ron's family, she had to think about it. Thus it was not expected that just as they were about to start their day, or whatever it was called in the afterlife, they were surrounded people. Hermione had been looking forward to spending time beneath the sun, with Ron and their children and being surrounded without warning put her on edge.

She recognized them all. But not everyone she knew was there, only most of them. As she looked around, and as they looked at her, she began to realize something. These people… they were the ones that Potter had killed. Her own parents, having passed away in peace, weren't there. The few who had escaped Potter's wrath and died in some other manner, weren't there. Those who had died in the war weren't there. Only those that Potter had killed.

Why had they all gathered? Hermione picked up her daughter, and Ron took their son's hand while putting an arm around Hermione.

"What's going on, you reckon?" he asked.

"I don't know," she replied. "I suppose we'll find out eventually."

But it didn't take long for her to get nervous, and Ron noticed. He looked around and seemed to find who he was looking for. He pulled Hermione along, and she relaxed once she saw Ron was taking them to Albus Dumbledore himself.

"Hermione, Ron," he greeted them. "I must say that despite the circumstances it's lovely to see you. The last visit was far too long ago."

"It's lovely to see you too, headmaster. Do you have any idea what's happening?"

"No, I'm not quite sure why we have all gathered," Albus said. "One moment I was reading, and the next… I was here. It seems everyone else was pulled from their peace, into here. Do any of you recognize this place?"

It was a huge, open field, with stone balconies rising from the ground here and there. A stone path was appearing slowly out of the ground, and Hermione could see forests and mountains in the distance, as well as a great, big lake. She had no idea where they could be.

"It's like the afterlife created it," Ron said. "Or is creating it."

Others gathered in groups, walked up to the balconies, or watched the nature. For a while, Hermione had no idea what they were supposed to be looking for. If they were supposed to look for something.

But then she saw the figure at the beginning of the stone path, a fair distance away from her and the others. Whoever it was, he was walking slowly towards them, his attention seemingly on the sky. Was it another person Potter had murdered?

"Someone who died after us?" Ron asked, having spotted what Hermione was looking at. "He looks like a wizard."

"He does," Hermione said.

Most didn't pay attention to the man. Instead they were talking with each other, wondering why they had been gathered. No one claimed to understand how the afterlife worked, but they had never been pulled together in this manner.

The man came closer, and only now seemed to notice the people. He stopped and looked right at Hermione and Ron. Her blood ran cold. She knew who it was.

Oh, he didn't look the same. He had grown taller, still lean. His hair was different, long and sleek, and the shape of his face had changed. But the eyes… those eyes were the same. She would never be able to forget those eyes.

Those clear, green eyes.

"Harry Potter."

Most pulled their wands on instinct before even turning around to look at the man, who without a doubt was their killer. Their enemy.

Their former saviour.

"Well… this sucks," was his greeting.

 _To be continued…_

* * *

Oooh, Harrison is in the afterlife! What will happen?

Chapter four: Harrison meets people he once cared for, and then killed. Why is he meeting them?

See you later,

Tiro


	4. Chapter 4

**The Nightmare Man's Journey**

 **Summary** : Sequel to The Nightmare Man, set ten years later. Under the rule of the Dark Lord Voldemort, much still remains the same. Yet rebels still exist, and they fight to remove Voldemort's ally, the Nightmare Lord. Will they succeed?

 **Pairing/s** : None.

 **Warnings** : Mentions and descriptions of violence and gore, OOC-characters, dark!Harry, time travel and other such stuff.

It's good if you've read the prequels _The Nightmare Man_ and _Birth of a Nightmare Man_ , or some confusion might occur.

 **Disclaimers** : I don't own Harry Potter, nor do I make any money writing fanfiction.

 _NOTE: Do not re-upload on sites as goodreads or Wattpad, I do not give permission to do so._

-o-

Hi! Took way longer than I expected. But thanks for your patience, and here comes the chapter.

Enjoy!

-o-

 **Chapter Four**

Hermione pulled out her wand as well, as their enemy was staring at them. Aside from his greeting, he seemed rather speechless.

"Wait, did you call me Harry Potter?" he said, as if just to defy her guess as him being speechless.

"That's your name," she spat, having found her voice quickly.

"No, no, no, not anymore. Well, it's not like you would know. But it's not Harry Potter. You can call me Harrison though. Or enemy. Or bastard, if that's your thing. Just basically anything but Harry Potter."

"Have you gone so far to even throw away your name?" Albus asked, moving to the front.

He spread out his arms, almost like he was guarding them even in death. Hermione shifted as to better shield his daughter, while Ron pulled their son behind them.

"Isn't that natural for a dark lord to do?" Harrison said where he stood some twenty feet away from Albus. "They take on a new name, and cast away the old one. Granted, in my case I forgot my own name for a while and once I remembered I no longer wanted to keep it. The name my parents gave me."

Dark lord? He considered himself a dark lord now? Hermione looked around. So they were all here… to see their killer? To meet the man who made sure they met their ends earlier than they should have?

Was it the afterlife's version of them taking revenge? Could a man be killed again? Harry, or Harrison, must be dead to be here with them, but could he be killed again? Hermione wanted to try. She really wanted to try.

Harrison looked around, and she realized something else was different about him. The last time she saw him, he had been injured and crazy, filled to the brink with manic energy. It was gone, that energy. Something had settled around him, a sort of chilling calm that frightened her more than the manic energy.

"Is this what death looks like?" Harrison asked. "Seems awfully cheery."

"Death is what you make it," Albus said as he stepped closer. "Harry… no, Harrison… you have changed."

"People tend to do that with time," he replied.

"Not that much time can have passed," Albus said.

"I'm an old man, Albus Dumbledore," Harrison said.

Hermione couldn't help but snort at his attempt to sound older and wiser than them. That had Harrison's attention on her.

"Oh, you think I'm lying, little girl," he said.

'Little girl' was said with such contempt and conviction that she startled. He came closer to her, smiling softly. The smile made her want to run. She wanted to take Ron's hand, and flee from him with her husband and their children.

"Little, smart Hermione who thinks she knows everything. But you haven't been around my life for a long time. I'm old, girl. Ancient even, to some. The dark lord that that has lived for well over a thousand years."

The silence was deafening. When Harrison clapped his hands, most of them flinched. He grinned, and continued:

"Enough about me, though. Why the hell are you all here? If death is truly what I make it, you would definitely not be a part of my afterlife and I would definitely, _definitely_ not be a part of yours. In fact, I'm probably the furthest thing away you would like to see… ooh, who's this then?"

Somehow her daughter slipped from Hermione's grasp, and before anyone had managed to stop her, she was in front of Harrison who no longer paid the rest of them any attention. Those bright, murderous eyes settled on her little girl. Hermione's scream stocked itself in her throat, as her daughter put her arms around Harrison's legs. She expected violence. She saw before her, blood on the ground. Her precious child, dead again. Not peacefully like last time, but bloody and violent like Harrison seemed to favour when killing people.

But that didn't happen. Instead of screaming, or killing her, or even touching her Harrison just looked at Hermione's daughter with a somewhat strange expression on his face. He was frowning, but didn't seem annoyed, or even angry.

He then boldly picked her up under her arms, and held her up like she weighed nothing.

"Hello… child," he said. "Oh my, you look a lot like a Granger and a Weasley. No mistaking who your parents are. Well, then…"

The expected violence didn't come even after he asserted whose daughter she was. Instead he set her back on her feet, turned her around and pushed at her back, herding her towards Hermione.

"There you go, off you trot," he told her.

"You're weird," she said to him.

"Yes, well, everyone's sort of weird," Harrison replied.

"Why don't they like you?"

"Because I'm an awful man. Go on now, back to your mother, that's a good girl."

Hermione was quick to scoop her daughter up once she was close enough, and Harrison straightened up.

"Well, lovely to see you all," he began. "Or, I would say that and mean it if I truly did want to see you, but since I didn't… bye!"

He turned to walk away, but Albus stepped forward and took out his wand. Others raised theirs once more. Hermione passed their daughter to Ron, and raised her wand as well. But unlike the old headmaster and the others, she did attack Harrison.

" _Avada Kedavra_!"

The spell hit him right in the back, and with enough force that he got thrown onto the ground.

"Hermione!"

"He deserves it," she said, to whoever had shouted her name. "Death, he deserves death over and over again!"

She felt in her right to do it again and again. But it hit him straight on, and he fell. So you could die in the afterlife? Or…

He moved to get up. She was there, slashing him open. As he fell back on the ground, she stood over him and cast several cutting spells. All of her anger was poured out with the magic, and his blood seeped down onto the ground.

Once she stopped, Harrison had his hands up, face torn along with his chest and arms. The wounds were deep, some of them reaching bone. His breathing sounded wet, damage to his lungs, and blood pulsated steadily out of the wounds for every breath.

"Beg," she said. "Beg for me to stop."

Not that she actually would stop, even if he did. She wanted him to beg, and being denied mercy, just like he had done to so many of them. Hermione wanted him to feel as powerless as they all did, even if it meant she tortured someone in front of her children.

Harrison blinked, and looked up at her.

"Beg for me to stop!" she repeated.

For a moment, she thought he would. He opened his mouth, and then closed it. A wound on his lip split further as he gave her a wide grin, showing bloodied teeth.

"Beg for mercy!" she screamed.

Instead, he began to laugh. He dropped his arms to the ground and continued laughing at her, and from one moment to the next, he had moved. He kicked her chest, and she flew backwards. She landed with a thud on the ground, and he was on top of her, holding her hands against the grass. Blood dripped down on her, but as she stared up at him the wounds began to close rapidly.

"Beg for mercy?" he said. "Oh, you're funny!"

"Get off me!"

"So you can attack me again? Now why would I do that?"

"Get off her!"

Ron tackled him, but Harrison didn't get scared, or even worried. He just laughed. He smashed Ron's nose, rolled away and got up. People moved in with their wands, and Hermione saw him shift, go from cackling madly at them, to deadly calm, and then he screamed.

Magic tore out of him. It came like a wave, and if Hermione hadn't been on the ground already, she would have been swept to the ground like everyone else did. Most people scrambled to get away from him after that. Hermione rolled over to her stomach, and saw her children. They were huddled together, staring, and she got up to her hands and knees to crawl to them.

What was with that magic? How had he become so strong, that he could just scream and have his magic attack them? Ron came to them as well, and Hermione looked back at Harrison.

The wounds were closing rapidly, even as he poked and prodded at them. The blood remained on his skin, but soon enough there wasn't a single wound left on his body.

"I suppose the wounds make sense, I did fall in with my whole body and all," he said, talking to himself. "But I am in the afterlife, so am I supposed to be dead and that's why the wounds didn't kill me?"

He patted himself down, checked his skin through the ripped clothes, and then he snapped his fingers. The blood turned to fine ash and disappeared from his skin. Another snap mended his clothing. The careless use of non-verbal and wandless magic caused many to move away further; not that he seemed to care about them anyway.

Hermione wanted to scream. She wanted to tear her hair. After all this time, she got her chance, but he didn't feel what they felt! He laughed at her. Laughed!

"Or is it because I can't die anyway?" Harrison continued. "If death is supposed to be so easy, why is it making things complicated for me right now?"

"What do you mean, you can't die?" Albus asked.

He was the only one who remained somewhat close to Harrison. He had his wand out, relaxed yet ready. From the looks of it, he was the only one with a wand out.

"Oh, you don't know that part yet!" Harrison said with a smile, like the last few minutes hadn't happened. "I must say, you're in for a bit of a surprise then, Albus Dumbledore."

"What do you mean?"

Hermione remained on her knees, not trusting her legs to hold her. Harrison's magic was clinging to the air itself, hung over them like a dark cloud. She wanted it to be foul, to be dark. She wanted it to feel evil, because that would make it easier to show he was a monster. But no, it was just powerful. Dense, and powerful.

"Back when I was wee, innocent child, I chose to kill someone to survive," Harrison said. "You already know this, why do I talk like you don't know this? Anyway! Something happened, when I chose to kill Voldemort. The moment I killed him, I took away the only one who was able to kill _me_. Of course, I didn't notice that for a long time, because I'm an idiot. Remember when you tried to kill me?"

Albus wavered a bit.

"The day you killed George instead," Harrison continued, dropping his smile. "Do you remember that, Albus Dumbledore?"

"Harrison…"

"Answer me. Do you remember when you tried to kill me because you believed in a lie your mind had conjured up, because you didn't even ask me for the truth, and George saved me instead?"

"I remember," Albus said. "I killed George."

"Yes, you did. And guess what? There was no point in doing that. I couldn't be killed by you. I couldn't be killed by anyone. So you killed George for nothing."

Hermione's mind was reeling with the new information, even as she thought back on those days. The days when they thought Voldemort had survived in Harry's body when in reality it was still Harry inside. He had just changed so drastically they didn't recognize him. She remembered how George had tried to tell them this so many times before Harrison was released from Azkaban.

She didn't know what he thought now because once she had died Hermione had never even caught a glimpse of George, or Fred for that matter. They never showed themselves. Ron had gone looking for them, in this vast afterlife, but they couldn't be found. They probably didn't want to see Ron or anyone on his side, since George was on Harrison's side and had surely convinced his twin to believe in Harrison rather than the rest of them.

Now that Hermione thought about it, she had never seen certain people in the afterlife. She had never seen James and Lily, or even Sirius and Remus. She had never caught a single glimpse of Severus Snape. Was it her choice, or did death not allow everyone to meet? Did it matter?

"Why don't we talk somewhere?" Albus told Harrison now.

"Oh, you do love that, don't you? _Talking_ to your enemies."

"What could be the harm?" Albus said.

"Of course you would say that," Harrison said. "Fine, whatever, we can talk. Just don't expect me to be nice and reasonable with you, I've had a bad day so far and talking to you isn't going to make it any better."

With that, Harrison smoothly moved off to the side, all sweeping grace and watchful gaze. Hermione still hated him. Hated him so much, that she couldn't stand the sight of him. Not now. Not later. Not forever.

-o-

Harrison hadn't known what to expect after falling through the Veil. It had all gone dark and quiet, and for a moment, he thought that was it. That was the end. A literal end, with nothing more than the darkness because someone who lived for over a thousand years probably didn't end up in that train station. Someone like him didn't get to choose whether or not to return to the world of the living. For a moment he imagined someone like him didn't get to have an afterlife where he met those he lost.

Then he woke up to a world of greenery. Beneath him stones pressed up through the earth, and as he watched they formed a path that disappeared towards the horizon. Lacking other options, Harrison had gotten up and followed the path. It had to lead him somewhere, right?

What he hadn't expected was to meet his former victims. Oh well, from an objective standpoint of view he definitely deserved to have them thrown in his face, but he wasn't exactly the type to feel bad or guilty for those he killed. Besides, it was a waste of time to feel guilty. It had already happened.

When Hermione attacked him, Harrison wasn't surprised. He knew an attack was just waiting to happen, and Hermione had always been fierce and merciless like that, ever since she was a child. It was the one thing he didn't hate about her.

He was aware of the others staring at him even as he walked away from them. He stopped and turned to face Dumbledore. The man who had decided Harrison's fate back when he was Harry Potter. If he hadn't thrown Harrison into Azkaban, none of this would have happened. But since the Dementors already existed, perhaps it was always meant to be. Albus Dumbledore was always meant to make that mistake, and Harrison was always meant to go insane and kill his former friends.

"Now what do you want?" Harrison asked.

"Why are you here?"

"Oh, I just thought it would be funny to cast myself into the afterlife for an afternoon stroll… _why_ do you think I'm here?"

Dumbledore flinched once Harrison looked at him. Did he appear that frightening or what?

"I'm here because someone wanted me dead," Harrison continued. "Namely, Hermione wanted me dead."

"But she's here," Dumbledore said.

"A different Hermione than that one over there. I'm tempted to say I must be hated by all Hermiones in all dimensions, but that would be all-knowing and while I'm old, I don't know everything. No matter what Lucy thinks."

"Lucy? Who's Lucy?"

"That doesn't matter," he said. "So, I'm here because Hermione tried to kill me, and I'm not sure if she succeeded or not. But it was a rather good plan of hers… if I get out, I'll try to remember and ask her how she came to think of it before I kill her."

"You speak of killing so easily."

"If you must know, I am still a killer," Harrison said. "Never said I was anything else."

"In death, you atone for your crimes."

"Really? Is there a manual for what you must do when you're dead? I hate manuals. They always seem to try and make things more confusing than it already is."

"What have you become?"

"Oh, for Merlin's sake, man! Why are you a walking cliché? I know I am, but why are you one as well?"

Dumbledore frowned.

"Oh, please, think," Harrison said. "You're a clever man. You defeated Grindlewald. You fought off Voldemort, time and time again… and then you put me in a prison because you're what, scared of me? Scared of a seventeen-year old who just wanted to live outside of Voldemort's shadow. You're an idiot."

"I…"

"Think, before you speak," Harrison warned him, walking up to the old headmaster. "Think carefully. I don't like people who make themselves out to be stupid, and you're anything but stupid."

"I don't… I don't know."

"Don't know what?"

"Why I did what I did," Dumbledore said. "I wasn't thinking clearly. Or, I thought it was the right thing to do."

"But you figured out later it wasn't?"

"Yes. In death, I figured I had acted… somewhat irrational."

"Must be the age," Harrison said. "Becoming older makes you crazier. Believe me, I know; I'm a product of time."

"So I was the bad man?" Dumbledore asked him.

There was only one answer to that, and it wasn't even hard to admit it:

"No."

Harrison stepped back, sighing before continuing:

"You were never the bad man, Albus Dumbledore. Misguided perhaps, and prone to make mistakes, but your intentions were… _good_ , god, I hate saying that word about people. Makes my skin crawl. You were the good man, and I became the bad one."

"You admit to that?"

"Why not? It's clear as day; I'd be stupid to deny it."

"So despite knowing this, you still continued your murderous ways somewhere else?" Dumbledore asked.

"Of course I did; I had nothing better to do than kill people."

Dumbledore closed his eyes. In despair? Or perhaps filled with pity? Harrison figured it could either one, or perhaps even both. He never really had bothered to try and figure out Albus Dumbledore's personality in either dimension.

What he did know was that Dumbledore had a tendency to forgive, or at least giving the impression that he was a man who forgave. Once upon a time, Harrison had somewhat been the same. He was ready to forgive Voldemort, if Voldemort felt regret for what he had done.

What a stupid, impressionable child he had been.

"So you know you are a monster, and yet you continue to be a monster?" Dumbledore said at last.

"Yes," Harrison replied.

"You're not even pretending to lie."

"Why should I? I am a murderer. I kill people. I like killing people."

" _Why?"_

"It's fun. For a while. Then I get bored, and I do other things until I find killing interesting again."

Killing would be very interesting if he managed to find a way back to the living world. He had some nice targets as well. Should he cut them up, piece by piece, for useless experiments? Should he torture them? Should he starve them? Or perhaps have the Dementors slowly breaking them down?

"Harry… Harrison… even if you are a murderer, there is always forgiveness to be had."

Harrison grabbed onto the colourful robes, ignoring people pulling out their wands and pointing them at him again. Let them try and kill him for laying hands on their precious leader; he'd just kill them again. He'd kill them and see if the ground in the afterlife could run red with blood.

He pulled Dumbledore close and hissed:

"Don't you dare, Albus Dumbledore. Don't you dare to say you forgive me. Don't be that weak. Be more like… oh, I know; be more like Uncle Vernon, and Aunt Petunia. They would never entertain the thought of either apologizing or asking for forgiveness."

"So it's their fault you turned out like this?"

"What? When did I say that? And no, not at all. They helped, I admit that, but I made the choices in the end. I chose to become this."

"You blamed me once. You said I was what happened to make you this way."

"Did I say that? Maybe I did. Maybe I thought that back then. But like Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, you only helped. I could have stopped. I chose not to."

"And you don't regret it?" Dumbledore said.

"Rather pointless, isn't it? This is me now. That boy you knew, he's long gone. He drowned in madness, and out of his corpse I was born."

Harrison let go of Dumbledore, and backed away.

"Still, for the afterlife to gather you all up. I wonder why… I don't want your forgiveness. In fact, I'll get rather angry if any of you try to forgive me."

"Why?" Dumbledore said. "Do not all beings wished to be forgiven for whatever wrongdoings they have done?"

"Not me. I don't mind being the nightmare lurking in the dark, forever hated by my enemies."

Harrison looked over at the others. Why was he shown to them? Why were they shown to him? He hadn't thought about them for quite a while. They hadn't mattered. They didn't matter. Their opinions of him didn't matter. He was fine with them hating him; he expected them to keep on hating him no matter what happened here.

So why was he meeting all of them again?

-o-

Voldemort was destroying all of the hiding spots he found for the rebels, but hated the fact he seemed to be one step behind them. Although there were sightings of rebels, the few that were caught had no knowledge of the rebel leaders' locations so they were useless. Voldemort knew from the start that there were rebels working within the Ministry, but now it was like they got a hold of important, sensitive information that he reported to the Ministry about his search.

So Voldemort stopped sharing with the Ministry about the progress he made. Lucius was informed and left to deal with the complaints, but he bore with it. They both knew why Voldemort started being secretive, and Lucius sent his best Aurors to try and find out who the rebels within the Ministry were, to deal with them.

Morton was amongst the top complainers about the whole mess, because he seemingly liked to complain about everything. Voldemort weighed pros and cons about killing him, but as time went by and he heard that Morton made a fuss about how the bathrooms looked he considered just killing the man without caring for the consequences. He could claim it was for his own, therapeutic purposes.

Bellatrix had been stopped twice from killing Morton during visits to the Ministry, and it was at a point where Voldemort forbade her to go the Ministry because she would eventually snap someone's neck just to relieve stress. So instead of going there and brandishing her wand with a wide grin, Bellatrix rampaged outside of Voldemort's manor, and her own, when she wasn't chasing rebels.

Usually, Voldemort would have found Harrison with her more often than not. He thought back on all the times he was left with corpses to get rid of, and how he thought it troublesome at times. He'd take it back, if it meant Harrison was actually there to torture some random stranger to death.

But the Nightmare Lord wasn't there. A month had passed. Not a single sign of him, and Voldemort had tried looking. Harrison's magic was slowly draining from the ground he had taken as his own. It was slowing draining away from his servants, and his home. Voldemort kept Harrison's manor in somewhat pristine condition with the help of warding stones, but what use would the manor be if Harrison didn't return?

Would Draco and Rabastan like to live there, seeing signs of their friend everywhere, yet knowing he wasn't coming back? Would Harry Potter like to live there, to the constant reminders of his missing mentor? Would Lucy and Angel want to live there, when their parental figure was gone?

When Lucian and Elise, the first servants, collapsed, what would happen then? Would the servants start to die off? Draco reported to Voldemort that the comatose servants were still stable. They weren't getting weaker, but they weren't waking up either.

Also, only four remained awake now. Elise hadn't gotten any worse; she still looked tired, but was the one with the most energy and magic to spare. Lucian was alright, but the last time Voldemort saw Ywgraine she was looking rather pale and clammy. Joanne, apparently, spent a lot of time resting.

With a sigh, he put the quill down and rested his head in his hands. He worried more about the servants than the rebels at this point, to be honest. He worried more about Harrison than the chaos in the Ministry.

"My lord?"

He looked up to see Lucius in the doorway.

"Can I kill Morton and put his head on a pole as a warning about people complaining and bad-mouthing dark lords?" Voldemort asked.

"Not sure it would help right now," Lucius said as he sat down in front of the desk. "However, when Harrison returns I have no problem with having Morton removed permanently from life."

"Has he caused any trouble?"

"Not really, he just seems to think complaining gets him somewhere. No matter how many times I tell him the Nightmare Lord is no lie, he appears convinced both you and I have been conned by Harrison. When I tell him that you, my lord, will avoid sharing information to the Ministry as to ensure the rebels doesn't find out your progress, he complains about that anyway. I had to remind him if he didn't start doing his job by the end of the week, he will have to look for a new one."

"What's his position now again?" Voldemort wondered.

"He's basically just a clerk. A clerk who's not supposed to have anyone working for him, but I've found out a woman who fancies herself his secretary. Meaning neither of them is actually doing their jobs."

"What's stopping you from firing them both?"

"I've given them to the end of the week," Lucius replied. "They weren't happy about it, but I'm in the clear. They have a job to do, and they haven't been doing it properly for months."

Voldemort got up to get Lucius a drink, sensing they both would need one.

"Did you come directly from the Ministry?" Voldemort asked.

"Yes, I told Narcissa I would stop by here first. Thank you, my lord."

Lucius took the glass with Firewhiskey and swallowed a large gulp of it.

"Any new leads?" he said.

"About the rebels? Not since last we spoke. Any leads on your end?"

"There are a few suspects within the Ministry, but I don't want to spook them so we're still investigating," Lucius replied. "They're discreet, I'll give them that."

"They're annoying," Voldemort said. "But all the evidence suggests that the rebels are actually following Granger and that Weasley boy."

"The leaders are two children."

"Young adults."

"Children," Lucius insisted.

"Whatever," Voldemort said. "It's not just those two, there are a few more, but they're about the same age as them. So we're being outsmarted by children… well, it's not really about age. They've learnt with the years how to hide, and that Granger girl is no fool."

"I've heard about Ron Weasley, that he's good at strategies," Lucius said. "So those two combined shouldn't be underestimated."

"Too bad we didn't kill them from the start," Voldemort said, spinning his quill around. "Would've saved us a lot of trouble."

"We'll find them and correct that mistake," Lucius said.

Yes, they would. But what would happen to Harrison's servants during that time that they didn't? What would happen if killing the rebel leaders didn't bring Harrison back?

-o-

Harrison knew he had issues. He had a lot of them. One issue that he was still struggling with was letting go. Letting go of the past, specifically.

Yeah, he kept going on and on about how he didn't care, yet he did care. He cared too much about the past, to the point he clung to it. It had shaped him into what he was, but now… had he been trying to use the past as an excuse for all that he had done?

No. Or had he? Harrison never apologized for what he was, and had no intention to do so either. He wasn't going to beg for forgiveness to those he killed in the past, and the past itself had long since… well, passed. So why was he holding onto it?

He still had nightmares about the demons he had made, when he didn't remember Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon. Somewhere in his head they had existed, but his own mind didn't let him remember, so the demons came to life, and continued to live to this day. Why? He remembered Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon now. He had remembered them for centuries, and ten years ago he killed his demons. He listened to their dying screams. He saw their corpses.

He wasn't scared of them anymore. He hadn't been for a long time. So why did he keep dreaming about those demons? Why did he keep holding onto the past?

As Harrison thought this over, his eyes wandered over the people who had gathered. Who were still eyeing him warily, or hatefully in Hermione's case. They weren't here to see him, he was certain of it. They were here to be shown to him.

And there it was.

They were here because of him.

Harrison relaxed, as it all fell into place. Why they were here. Why he was seeing them after all this time. What this meeting meant for him more than what it meant for them.

Letting go. If there was something he supposed you did in death, it was to let go of old grudges and memories. Let go of your past. While Harrison wasn't certain he would remain in this afterlife, he was given a chance to let go of the past.

Let go of them, his old friends, and people he once knew and cared for. People he killed in the end. Perhaps he could even let go of the haunting images his aunt and uncle had become when he didn't remember them by name, but definitely by what they had done to him. Let go of his damned demons, at long last.

"Harrison?"

He looked at Dumbledore. Kind, foolish Dumbledore. The old man who tried to do the right thing, but kept making mistakes along the way that eventually ruined him and the future he had tried to build for the magical community.

Harrison could let go of the hatred he had for this frail, old man. He could let go of the feelings of abandonment he gained when Ron and Hermione left his side.

"I like to hold grudges," he told Dumbledore. "Hate festers in grudges. It grows, and grows, until it fills you up. Makes you feel complete, when you're empty inside. I hated you all for hate's own sake. To feel complete and perhaps even justified. Rather pointless, really."

"Why was it pointless?"

"Well, you were dead and I wasn't. Why hold a grudge towards those who have died? Why even hate the dead? Did I try to make myself feel better? Or did I just hate people out of old habit?"

Letting go didn't mean to forgive. Perhaps people like Dumbledore thought so, but Harrison didn't. Letting go of the past didn't mean he forgave Hermione and Ron for abandoning him. He didn't forgive Dumbledore for killing George. As he stood here, in the afterlife, he refused to forgive. He did however, accept it as fact and let it go.

As cliché as it all sounded, he let go of it all. His childhood, the friends who left him, the adults who betrayed him, his pointless hatred for hate's own sake… even Aunt and Uncle, the demons in his dreams, he waved them a mental farewell and let it all go.

Nothing happened at first. Harrison wasn't sure if he should expect something to happen. But then the ground rumbled. People shot to their feet, or gathered in clusters. They took out their wands. So did Dumbledore. He moved back to the others, while Harrison waited.

The stone path he had followed, fading away in the grass around them, appeared once more. It began to build and continue on. Even as it forged a path through the field, away from them all, the grass turned brown and black as blood poured up through the dirt.

A gory path stretched out before them, but only Harrison seemed to know it was his path alone. His own path through his own history. Was he meant to let it all go, or was it just his childhood and early adulthood he had to let go?

"Either way," he said as he looked at the path, "seems like I will be doing a walk down memory lane. Wonderful. Not. This is going to take a while."

The path disappeared towards the horizon, but along it corpses now began to show up. Some were whole, their lifeless eyes turned up towards the sky. Others were torn into pieces. White bones amongst flesh and organs. A hand there, a lone eye there…

"What's going on?" someone shouted.

Harrison stepped up on the stone path, drawing everyone's attention.

"What are you doing?" Dumbledore asked, wand ready and pointed at him.

"It's my path," Harrison said. "My path through my own history, perhaps. Hopefully I don't have to meet every person I ever killed; I'd grow tired of it before we even reached the ninth century."

"What do you mean?"

"You're just a stop. An event in my life. The moment I let go of you, of the past, the path came back. I guess that means I'm supposed to go through my entire life before I can back to the world of the living."

"Don't you mean your own afterlife?" Dumbledore said.

"Oh, I have no intention of remaining dead," Harrison replied. "I'll claw my way back to life if I have to. For all the times I have yearned for death, I'm not going to comply when it's an enemy who tried to kill me."

With that, he began to walk.

-o-

Hermione didn't want to just let Harrison go. Just let him wander out of their sight without a care. She wanted to hurt him. Tear him apart. Have him scream in agony. But judging from how he reacted before when she hurt him, he wouldn't show her that. He'd laugh in her face, and carry on.

Because he always did that, even as Harry Potter. He always just carried on. So Hermione kept her hand off her wand, no matter how much she wanted to flay his back open, and have him fall to the ground once more. She wasn't content with how things had turned out, but she was willing to let him disappear from her sight.

Not everyone was content with that. Tonks stepped forward. She held out her hand, and a ring appeared around Harrison. He stopped, and then tried to move his arm through. He couldn't, and so he turned to look back at Tonks.

"The afterlife is what you make it," Tonks said.

"Yes, I gathered as much," Harrison said.

"I want my afterlife to keep you in that ring, and show me your weakness."

"I have many, I assure you."

But before he could go on, a small girl appeared from nowhere. Her hair was like spun gold, and the eyes were the colour of the sky. She was smiling, all chubby cheeks and the sight of a healthy, happy child. She ran up to Harrison, arms thrown out and she said:

"Up, up!"

Harrison's folded arms fell to his side, but not for long; he took her hands and with a gust of magic, hailed her up into the air like she was flying. She laughed, a bright sound amongst the silence of them all, and Harrison spun her around with a wave of his hand. The more he did, the more she shrieked in delight until he finally caught her.

"Hello, Angel," he said to her.

"What's that?" Tonks demanded to know. "Why did you call her that?"

"Because that's her name," Harrison replied as he sat the girl on his hip. "Not very creative, I admit, but it was the truth. She was the only angel in my home. She still is, I suppose."

Angel hugged Harrison, as if she didn't see them.

"You aren't killing her?" Hermione said, coldness seeping into her limbs. "You're… _caring_ for her?"

"It's rather pathetic. Or cruel. Perhaps more cruel for you, to see me care for a child… when I killed both of yours."

"Why are you caring for her?" Tonks said.

"I don't know yet," he replied. "I've killed children her age before. I probably will again. But not Angel. Or Lucy."

"Who is this Lucy?" Albus said. "You mentioned her before."

"A Muggleborn," Harrison replied as he patted Angel's back. "She's a teenager now, oh my how times flies… she likes the Dementors."

Hermione didn't want to hear more. She didn't want to see more, because the more he talked, and the more she looked… he seemed almost whimsical. The odd uncle, more than the crazy, murdering man she knew him as. He wasn't kind. He was cruel. A monster.

A monster that held a child in his arms so gently, it made her heart hurt.

"They're just some of my weaknesses," Harrison said as he set Angel down on her feet again. "Like I said, I have many. But just because I have weaknesses, doesn't mean I myself have gotten any weaker."

"How did you end up here then?" Albus asked. "Was a weakness used against you?"

"Maybe. I just never considered a Veil a weakness. But the Veil takes anyone, doesn't it? The moment you touch it, it pulls you through. I wasn't trying to touch it. I was more or less herded into it. Clever. Had I known Hermione Granger in a different dimension could ever think that up, I would've killed her when I had the chance. Back when she was a wee girl, watching her dimension's Harry Potter betray the so-called Light side."

"He… another dimension?" Hermione said.

"What do you mean by that?" Ron demanded to know.

"I went to another dimension, and fucked everyone up there too," Harrison said with a wide grin. "It was _lovely_ to see Dumbledore die twice. And I finally got to kill aunt Petunia and uncle Vernon. My demons. My nightmares. That was fun."

The ring disappeared, and so did Angel. He looked at the spot where she had stood, and then back at the gory path.

"I'm off then," he said.

But from one moment to the next, there was someone standing on the path. A woman, who held up her skirts to not get them bloody. She walked with purpose, towards them. Was she another victim of Harrison's?

Her clothes appeared old. Like from another time than theirs. Hermione had no idea who she was, yet she looked oddly familiar. Like she had seen a painting of the woman somewhere before…

The woman came to a stop, some thirty feet away from Harrison.

"I'm here to guide you through the path," she said to him.

"What?" Hermione said before she could stop herself.

The woman looked at her, then at the others.

"I'm here to guide him," she repeated.

"Why?" Tonks asked. "Because he needs to have his hand held?"

"Oh no, not at all. I'm not doing it because I think he will be hurt. I know he won't. In fact, I know he will find it funny. He will laugh at people's despair, because that is what he is. A bad man, who cares nothing for the fate of strangers. A bad man who rejoices in their fear and anger. A man who loves people's hate towards him, because he knows he is a man to be hated."

"Then why?" Hermione said. "Why are you going to guide him through… the path, if he doesn't need you to do it?"

"Because I'm too kind to not do it," the woman replied. "To leave you alone, lord."

Hermione moved so she could see Harrison's face and he was… smiling. Not the grin she had seen earlier. It was a soft smile, almost sad.

"Rowena Ravenclaw," he said. "Still the same, and as beautiful as the day I met you."

"Same goes to you, lord. You haven't aged a day."

Hermione wasn't the only one to stare at the woman. At Rowena Ravenclaw, who stood on blood-covered stones and conversed with their killer like they were old friends.

"Flatterer," Harrison said. "And I see you are as kind as always."

"I know," Rowena replied. "That kindness stuck a nerve, didn't it? You didn't understand my kindness. Any sort of kindness."

"I didn't remember it," Harrison said. "How to be kind. How to receive kindness, and then you lot dared to just show me. Force me to learn it again."

"I can't say I regret it. You were in pain, lord. For being such a nightmare to others, you suffered yourself."

"Well, it wasn't like I didn't deserve that for all the misery I caused."

"You haven't changed in that manner either," Rowena said. "So conscious of your choices. How you could have been a good man, but chose not to be."

Harrison walked up to her. Hermione wasn't sure what to do. They were friends. Harrison was friends with one of the four founders of Hogwarts. So he had gone to another dimension, just like he said, and wrecked their lives as well. He wasn't satisfied with ruining his own world; he had to do it to someone else's as well.

"Why are you kind to him?" Ron asked Rowena. "He's a murderer!"

"We know," Rowena replied as she took Harrison's hands, letting the hem of her dress fall to the ground. "We accepted it. Accepted the evil, for the small amount of good that is left in you."

"A painfully, small amount I hope," Harrison muttered. "I wouldn't be very satisfied knowing I suddenly started doing good deeds."

"Oh, no, lord; we'll never be that lucky that you'll stop being you."

She began to lead him away.

"Wait," Albus said. "Harrison… if nothing else, I would like for you to know…"

"If you still insist that you're going to forgive me," Harrison interrupted as he turned back to them, "I will have to rip out your heart. Or your tongue. Perhaps even pull the brain out through your nose."

Albus stepped back.

"Don't you dare forgive me," Harrison repeated. "Don't be that _weak_. Follow Hermione's example; she'll hate me until the end of time and it's only right that she does. Not everything needs forgiveness. Not everyone _wants_ to be forgiven. And forgiving me, knowing I don't regret a single thing? That's just plain stupid."

"You… you truly aren't Harry Potter anymore."

"He died. I was born. The Nightmare Lord, with his silly title and murderous ways." Harrison looked at Albus one last time. "And I don't regret a single thing."

With that, he walked off with Rowena guiding him, whilst leaving his old past behind.

 _To be continued…_

* * *

He finally meets Rowena again!

Chapter four: Voldemort struggles to keep the fraction within the Ministry from growing. The Nightmare Lord's servants are getting weaker. And how will Harrison cope having to walk through his long life again?

See you later,

Tiro


	5. Chapter 5

**The Nightmare Man's Journey**

 **Summary** : Sequel to The Nightmare Man, set ten years later. Under the rule of the Dark Lord Voldemort, much still remains the same. Yet rebels still exist, and they fight to remove Voldemort's ally, the Nightmare Lord. Will they succeed?

 **Pairing/s** : None.

 **Warnings** : Mentions and descriptions of violence and gore, OOC-characters, dark!Harry, time travel and other such stuff.

It's good if you've read the prequels _The Nightmare Man_ and _Birth of a Nightmare Man_ , or some confusion might occur.

 **Disclaimers** : I don't own Harry Potter, nor do I make any money writing fanfiction.

 _NOTE: Do not re-upload on sites as goodreads or Wattpad, I do not give permission to do so._

-o-

Thanks for all the reviews! It's a little earlier than the other chapters, but writer's block lifted for a moment and granted me this.

Enjoy this chapter.

-o-

 **Chapter Five**

Walking down the gory path with Rowena was rather relaxing, if one ignored the scenery. Rowena didn't seem as bothered with it as Harrison thought. Was it because she knew it wasn't real? Or had death changed her?

She didn't feel changed. She was the Rowena he had grown to know, her body youthful and strong.

"I wonder if this path is supposed to be a punishment," Rowena said. "To have you think about your actions?"

"I don't think death is that foolish to believe this will make me rethink my life choices," Harrison replied. "Perhaps more a physical representation of my history. I did pave my way forward by killing people."

"Still," Rowena said as she stepped over a hand, nose wrinkled. "It feels a bit too much."

"I'm too much, Rowena, you know that."

"Hopefully we'll get to the others soon."

"The others?" Harrison's heart jumped to his throat. "They are all… they are here?"

"Of course they are!" Rowena said, looking at him. "I know you will try to return to life, but… we are hoping you could stay for a little bit. Have a chat, face to face. We've missed you."

"I've missed you four as well. More than I'd like to admit."

Did she know about all the people he had now outside of his servants and Dementors and Inferi? Did the conversations he had with their portraits come back to their souls here in the afterlife? Did he want to know?

"Rowena…" He tried to find the words. "Do you… know? The conversations with your portraits, do you four remember?"

She took his hand and held it tightly.

"We do. It's distant, like a memory, but we do remember them. It's not the same as talking directly to you, but a little piece of us remains in those portraits."

So he wasn't just talking to memories of them. He was _talking_ to them, even if death separated them. Harrison felt a bit better about that.

"Those people back there," Rowena said. "Did you kill all of them?"

"Yes," Harrison said. "Back when I was Harry Potter."

"Why did you meet them?"

"Because I had something I needed to do. Do you remember Aunt and Uncle?"

"Your demons? How could I forget them?"

"They came from the past. I kept dreaming about them, even after I remembered. They remained with me, even when I tried to convince myself that the past had no hold over me."

"And now?"

"Now it doesn't. I let it go."

It didn't feel very different right now. It wasn't like a great weight lifted from his shoulders. But he hoped he would notice. Perhaps he wouldn't have nightmares as often. Perhaps he wouldn't get stuck in the past as often… perhaps he wouldn't get stuck at all.

The corpses were grasping for him every now and then. Garbled demands, _why, why did you kill me, WHY_ , could be heard. He didn't respond. No answer could possibly satisfy them anyway, so why try?

The blood began to thin out. The corpses sank down into the earth once more. Rowena led him up a hill, down it, and the stone path widened into a circle. There was a table there, and a lake that looked very much like the lake next to Hogwarts. A castle, not quite Hogwarts, could be seen further along the shore of the lake, but Harrison's attention was on the three people at the table.

Godric was already up. Salazar and Helga followed. Rowena stopped Harrison and embraced him, something that had rarely happened while they were alive. Harrison hugged back with a fierceness that surprised him. Rowena's quiet laughter told him she might be as surprised as him.

"Did you miss us that much?" she asked.

"I suppose."

"Don't think I'm the only one who will hug you."

"No worries, I do have some experience with them now," he told her.

Lucy and Angel were never afraid to hug him. As a teenager, Lucy wanted to pretend in front of others she didn't need hugs, and he indulged her, knowing she would seek him out when she needed or wanted a hug. Angel however seemed just fine with throwing her arms around him whenever she damned pleased. He hoped she would never change.

Godric and Salazar reached him before Helga did, and Rowena drew back just as the two men pounced him. Harrison lost his balance and down they went. Good thing the blood on the ground was gone; Harrison would prefer to not have blood all over him when meeting old friends.

"You bloody oaf!" Godric wheezed at Salazar.

"You're the oaf," Salazar replied.

"Both of you are the oaf," Harrison said.

Godric grinned, and turned to Salazar. As one, they pulled him up but Godric bent down and wrapped his arms around Harrison's legs. Harrison couldn't stop the yelp as he was lifted over Godric's shoulder, and then Godric was running away like a madman.

"Put him back down, I want in on that hugging business!" he heard Helga yell. "Godric, don't make me bind you and have you thrown into the lake again!"

Godric laughed. Helga pulled her skirts up with a very determined face, and chased after him. Salazar put his arms around his midriff as he began to laugh, and eventually he stomped the ground, his laughter wheezy as he watched them.

"This can't be that funny," Harrison told Godric.

"I can make it funnier!"

And then Godric threw Harrison into the lake. Spluttering, Harrison got his head over the surface, and had his magic latch onto Godric. Godric went flying in next to Harrison, and Helga didn't seem to care about the water as she was already waist-deep by the time Harrison got close enough to her.

"You are such a child!" Helga chided at Godric. "And you, lord, you aren't any better!"

"I know; Elise has spoilt me rotten over the years."

They got out the water, half-drenched, Salazar stumbling over to them while Rowena followed more gracefully.

"Rowena, dear," Harrison said, remembering something. "I might have shown your art creations to someone."

With that, Rowena's gracefulness disappeared. She shrieked and rushed over to them.

"You promised me you would never show it to a living person!" she said.

"Well, technically he was sort of closer to death than anything else…"

"Doesn't matter, if he had eyes then he saw them!"

"It's not like he'll tell anyone."

"How do you know?"

"Alright, it's not like anyone would _believe_ him."

"That doesn't reassure me at all!" she insisted.

It was like old times. Just like old times. Harrison didn't realize how much he had missed the old times. He knew he didn't want to stay in the afterlife, or if he even was allowed to. Perhaps this was a punishment of sorts. To walk through his own life, he would meet the four founders again.

And then he would lose them, again, when he left. Harrison shook his head. He hadn't lost them just yet. They were right in front of him, laughing and Godric was spraying Salazar down with water. Rowena got caught in a wave, and promptly got her revenge. Helga told them they were all children.

Harrison decided to not think about what he had to do, and just enjoy the moment for as long as he had it.

-o-

When the first attack between Ministry employees happened, one and a half month since Harrison disappeared, Voldemort cursed himself for staying away. It wasn't even a fight between a rebel and a normal employee; it had apparently started as an argument about the Nightmare Lord and escalated into violence.

It didn't help that Morton was there to stir the pot, egging people on to abandon their belief in the Nightmare Lord as an ancient being. Morton, Voldemort found out now, held speeches about how they were going to expose the Nightmare Lord for lies, his faked immortality, and his deception towards Voldemort.

As if Voldemort was an idiotic child who couldn't tell lies apart from the truth. As if Voldemort needed to be _protected_ by some god-awful man sprouting his own lies with such haste it was a wonder he didn't choke on them.

Voldemort was already on his way out of Lucius' office, wand out, when he was held back by Rodolphus and Rabastan. Not Harrison's Rabastan, although he probably only would've helped restraining Voldemort.

"It won't help killing him right now!" Lucius hurried to say as the brothers struggled with Voldemort. "My lord, please, just listen to me."

"He's lying through his teeth!"

"Yes, he is, and we will show people the truth but right now he has too much sway over things. Killing him wouldn't help!"

"It would help me calm down!" Voldemort replied.

He could have blasted the brothers away, but after a few minutes he calmed down.

"After this is done and fixed, I _will_ have Morton's head placed on a pole to warn about idiots that are lying through their idiotic teeth," Voldemort growled, before sitting down. "Why? What does he gain from lying? Not our support, he must realize that."

"Oh no, my lord, he thinks the opposite," Rabastan said. "I heard him earlier. He thinks if he exposes the Nightmare Lord to you, you'll reward him."

"I'll reward him by ripping his tongue out and plucking his eyes right out of their sockets," Voldemort said. "Then tear his limbs off and have him crawl around with no arms and legs."

"How can you crawl if you ain't got no arms and legs?" he heard Rabastan whisper to Rodolphus.

A rustle of cloth told Voldemort Rodolphus had only given a shrug as a reply.

"That sounds like something Harrison would say," Lucius said.

"Apparently he did that to someone he didn't like," Voldemort replied. "But he also plucked out all of the organs before letting that person die."

"What is it with the Nightmare Lord and ripping out people's internal organs?" Rodolphus muttered to Rabastan.

Now it was Rabastan's turn to shrug, apparently.

"I've given another statement about Harrison," Lucius said and sat down. "But they're demanding to see him."

"Who are they, exactly?" Voldemort asked.

"I'm not going to tell you right now, my lord, because I don't want to have to clean up body parts off the atrium floor," Lucius said.

"It's not like you'll clean them up."

"No body parts on the atrium floor today, my lord."

"Tomorrow then?" Voldemort wondered.

"Not in the near future," Lucius added. "They're demanding to see him. I told them what you said earlier, that he is currently indisposed. I don't want to drag any of the servants here either…"

It wouldn't help. They weren't the Nightmare Lord. Could someone disguise themselves as the Nightmare Lord? No, Voldemort couldn't see anyone perfectly copying Harrison's erratic behaviour well enough to survive a close scrutiny by people eager to discredit his claims as an immortal Dark Lord.

"Well… shit."

Voldemort tugged at his hair and bemoaned his fate.

"I hate the rebels so much," he said as he let his head fall down on Lucius' desk. "I hate Morton even more. Just his tongue, just let me rip out his tongue!"

"I wish I could let you do that, my lord," Lucius said. "I know I would get a laugh out of it. But we can't."

"Right now, I also hate politics and logic," Voldemort said and raised his head. "The fact I captured ten rebels three days ago isn't even cheering me up anymore."

He hadn't interrogated all of them yet, but so far the information was good. He had gotten a lot more than he thought. More hideouts, no end of hideouts, and half-made plans.

The rebels were trying to find the Nightmare Lord's manor to kill off his children, because Lucy's and Angel's existence was known even if few knew any details, and Harry as well. Good thing Voldemort had stepped in with the warding, so the manor remained out of sight. He just had to update Rabastan and Draco about the plans, so they would keep the kids and Harry within the wards.

No luck in finding Weasley or Granger. However, Voldemort now knew they were working very closely with Neville Longbottom, Ginny Weasley and Luna Lovegood. Five children had managed to create so much chaos… he definitely should've had them killed ten years ago.

"Keep me informed about Morton and what his… group is doing. We can't let some idiots succeed in completely cracking the Ministry open."

Lucius nodded as Voldemort stood up.

"I have the feeling the following weeks aren't be that pleasant," Lucius said.

"Oh, I know they won't be," Voldemort said. "Excuse me for now, Lucius; I have rebels to torture information from."

"Good luck with that."

-o-

The chaos within the Ministry didn't exactly cease, from what Voldemort could tell when he visited a few days later. This time he had Elise with him. She was pale, but had gotten clearance from Draco to join Voldemort as long as she didn't overdo anything. As she was much like her master, Voldemort kept an eye on her.

As luck would have it, they did run into Morton just as they met up with Lucius. The man immediately began to talk about the Nightmare Lord, or the fake one as he himself stated and Voldemort saw Elise's arm twitch in time to stop her from taking out her wand. Well, she got it out, but he stopped her from aiming it at Morton.

"Draco's orders were to take it easy," Voldemort told her. "Torturing and killing this man isn't taking it easy."

Morton's eyes turned wide.

"No, but it would make me happy," Elise replied.

"Are you one of this lord's supposed servants?" Morton asked.

"Don't you have work to do?" Lucius wondered. "Or do I need to make sure you don't get paid this week either, since you never seem to do any work?"

Morton reddened, and his mouth thinned out. Either he was embarrassed, or he was angry. Or both? Embarrassed he was caught, angry that he had to listen to someone? If so, he shouldn't be working underneath anyone anyway.

"How long will this façade go on?" Morton said to Elise. "The Nightmare Lord doesn't exist anymore. If he did, it was a long time ago. His story is over; it belongs in the history books!"

"And what would you know about that?"

Harry Potter stepped up to Elise's side.

"Well?" he continued to Morton. "Tell me. What do you know about the Nightmare Lord? What wonderful insight do you have that paint him as false, or not real?"

"Now see here…"

"If you can't tell me that," Harry interrupted, "then you can fuck off for now."

"The Nightmare Lord is a mere story! They keep telling me he's not available for any meetings."

"That's because he's out of the country at the moment," Harry said. "But I'll be sure to tell him what you said when he gets back. He gets creative with the people who doubt him. Very creative. He likes to remove organs, doesn't he Elise?"

"He loves that," Elise said, smiling widely.

Morton looked between the two of them, but Harry wasn't finished.

"He'll start with the organs you can still survive without," Harry said, stepping up to Morton. "He'll do it slowly, to make sure it hurts. He'll let you wait for days before he takes something else. He might chop off an arm or two in the meantime. I mean, it's not like you'll need them anymore. His prisoners don't need their arms or legs, because they aren't going to make it out alive anyway."

Morton was getting a little bit pale, but Harry pushed on:

"You won't bleed out, no. The Nightmare Lord doesn't let people bleed out on his table. That would cut the torture short, and that wouldn't be much fun, now would it?"

"He'd hate that," Elise picked up. "Master did that once, in 842. He got so angry that he slaughtered an entire village just to calm down from that."

"And once your arms and legs are gone, he'll continue with the organs," Harry continued. "He won't cut them out carefully though, no. He'll rip them out. The more you scream, the more the lord laughs. The more pain he can put you into, the more peaceful he feels."

Harry bent a little bit to look Morton in the eyes.

"So I would watch my fucking mouth," he finished. "Because once the Nightmare Lord has you… you won't ever see the light of day again."

"Get back to work, Morton," Lucius said. "This is your final warning. I find you wandering around not working one more time, you're fired."

Morton didn't quite flee, but it was a near-thing and Harry straightened up.

"How was that?" he asked Voldemort.

"Quite the performance," Voldemort said. "I didn't think you knew all the details of Harrison's tortures."

"I asked Lucian about the parts I didn't know," Harry said. "Besides, that's just one way of him torturing someone; I picked what sounded most gory."

"Why aren't you in school?" Elise asked. "Did something happen?"

"I took a leave of absence," Harry said. "It's basically summer already, they didn't mind. Thought I'd keep Lucy and Angel distracted."

"Lucy?"

"I took her with me, anything she hasn't finished I can send to Hogwarts by post," he told Elise. "Any news on Harrison's whereabouts?"

"Nothing," Elise said.

"Nothing from me either, I'm afraid," Voldemort continued. "The Veil that was created isn't giving us anything, and few dare to go too near it."

"Master can't die," Elise said.

"But a Veil is… we don't know much about them," Voldemort said. "He fell through it, that's almost certain."

"But he can't die."

"His body isn't here," Voldemort said. "All the other times he couldn't die, his body was in the world of the living. What happens if his body is in the afterlife?"

Elise's lips wobbled for a moment, and her eyes appeared shiny. But then she blinked, and her mouth hardened.

"He'll find a way out," she said. "Master always does."

Voldemort hoped Harrison would, because as far as he could tell, they wouldn't be able to get Harrison back.

The Nightmare Lord was on his own this time.

-o-

Harry had been around Harrison for ten years. He had practically lived with the man for ten years, or at least gotten used to always have him around. Five years ago, his friends from his original dimension arrived and so Harry was used to Draco and Rabastan too. Another Draco, and another Rabastan, that is.

So returning to a manor that lacked Harrison's humming magic felt weird. Almost wrong. And he knew he wasn't going to leave the grounds for a while. Voldemort had told him, and that trip to the Ministry was a spur of a moment thing, not expected to be repeated in the near future.

Angel and Lucy were outside. Rabastan was there too, chasing Angel around. She seemed happy enough, even if she knew something was wrong. Lucy however… Lucy sat nearby and just watched.

"The rest of your work?" Harry asked.

"I've done most of it," Lucy said. "Is Harrison dead?"

"No."

"You don't know that!"

"No, I don't," he confessed and sat down next to her. "It's what I chose to believe."

"That's just stupid," Lucy said.

"Maybe. Probably. But I believe it anyway. Come on, have a little faith in him."

"He's so stupid," she said. "Uncle Harrison always does things like this."

"Oh, so he disappears regularly then?"

"You know what I mean! Being reckless. Not caring about his own life. He never does. You'd think he'd care about the people around him."

"He does."

"Then he wouldn't be reckless!"

"Can't he be both?" Harry said.

Just like that, Lucy deflated. She was fifteen. A rebellious teenager. Well, not so much rebellious as figuring out her place in the world. Near adult, some would say. You're almost an adult, people _had_ said to her.

Not Harrison. To him, she was still a child. A child who deserved to be protected from the world. Harrison may not have chosen to become a parent to her and Angel, but he had become it. It was sort of his job to keep her safe.

"He's conflicted," Harry said. "For a long time, he didn't care. For a long time, he looked for ways to die. That's a behaviour he's having a hard time changing. Believe me, it's frustrating to see it."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, I hate it. Every time he gets into an accident, or get hurt, it's so frustrating because he laughs it off. He laughs death in the face, and we don't know if one day death is going to keep him."

Lucy leaned up against Harry.

"I miss him," she said. "He's crazy and weird and loves to be covered in blood and guts which is just _icky_ , but I miss him. The manor feels wrong, and almost all of the servants are asleep and the Dementors are sad and the Inferi barely move and… it's all wrong!"

"I know," Harry said, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. "He's always been there. He's impossible to kill. We take his presence as something that should always be there."

"Is it true? Did he fall through a Veil?"

"Who told you that?"

"I heard Lucian and Elise talk about it."

"Lucy, you shouldn't eavesdrop."

"Is it true?" she repeated, looking up at him.

"… Yeah. It's true."

No point in lying if she already heard it. Lucy sagged a little against him, but Harry took it.

"A Veil is different," she said. "I looked it up. All the books say there's no coming back if you fall through a Veil. There's no way to come back."

He knew that. Lucian and Elise most likely knew that. Voldemort as well. It was practically impossible for a mortal person to come back. But Harrison wasn't mortal. He was denied death, as the only one who could kill him was already dead.

"We'll see," Harry said at last. "I want to believe in him. I want to believe that he's coming back."

"Believing is something else than knowing."

"Yeah, but someone's gotta be positive amongst this pessimistic bunch."

"Pessimistic!" Angel called.

"Well, except for Angel," Harry corrected. "She doesn't know how to be pessimistic."

"I'm gonna get you!"

Angel shrieked and moved out of the way from Rabastan, who turned sharply and chased after her. It was a good distraction; she loved the running anyway and it left her tired at night. Normally, several servants would do the chasing, Harrison joining in sometimes, but she had to make due with Rabastan, Draco and Harry for the time being.

"He better come back soon," Lucy said. "Or I'll fail school on purpose so he has to take care of me for the rest of my uneducated life."

"Oh, the horror," Harry said.

"And I'll make sure I'm very difficult."

"I'm sure you will."

He did join in on the chasing, letting Rabastan take a break and once the sun was down he carried Angel inside. Draco had made dinner, and Rabastan pulled him down before he could run off to check on the comatose servants.

"You're going to eat this, at the table," Rabastan told him and gestured at the plate. "And then I'll check on the servants, so you can have an early night."

Draco did indeed look rather drained, and didn't put up much of a fight. They didn't have seating arrangements, never had, but Harrison's absence was still felt. Normally, he would be the odd one out at the dining table. Sometimes he wouldn't eat by the dining table. He could sit on the floor, on the arm of the chair, or even upside-down. Sometimes he ate sitting on the table, flinging peas into Angel's open mouth.

Now every empty chair seemed to vibrate with the absence of their unruly master, guardian and friend.

"Never thought I'd miss someone sitting on the table like a madman," Draco finally muttered.

"Or someone throwing food," Rabastan said. "Horrible manners."

"You mean no manners."

"No manners, I stand corrected."

"Are you talking about Uncle Harrison?" Angel wondered.

"Yeah, and he has no manners," Rabastan said. "Unlike you, young lady."

"Is he coming home soon?"

"We don't know yet," Rabastan said. "He doesn't think that far ahead, usually, to tell us when to expect him back."

"You're lying again, aren't you?" she asked.

"I might, I might not. Now finish your vegetables."

Angel didn't say much more than that. Harry wondered if they needed to talk more to her about it. She was definitely aware that Harrison was not just on a trip, and she called out on everybody when they lied about it. But she didn't throw a temper tantrum or demanded to know where he was.

So he did haul her off after dinner, and sat her down in his room.

"Are you feeling alright?" he asked.

"Yeah," Angel replied.

"No need to shout or make demands? Stuff like that?"

"That's more Uncle Harrison's thing," Angel said. "I'm more patient than him."

"That is definitely true."

"Is he hurt? Or in danger?"

"I don't know," Harry said, truthfully. "I have no idea how he's doing right now."

Angel pulled her legs up to her chest, and hummed.

"He needs to come back soon," she said. "The whole house feels wrong. The humming's wrong."

"The humming?"

"The humming in the walls," she explained. "Uncle Harrison said it was his magic. But it's the wrong humming, and it's not a bad sound but I still want the normal one back."

So she could hear the magic? Angel could see some of the magic, the spells and the sparkles Harrison sometimes produced just to distract her, but she never said anything about hearing it.

"So do I," Harry said. "So do I."

-o-

Harrison didn't want to leave the founders. He didn't want to have to lose them again. But if he wanted to get back to the world of the living, he had to. In order to return to his manor, to his servants and children and friends, he had to give up those he had lost already.

Didn't mean it didn't hurt. It was painful, looking at their faces, knowing this would possibly be the last time he could touch them. You could touch a painting, but a painting could never touch you back.

So he dragged it out. He was an expert at denying the truth, and ignoring it as well. He could drag things out like no other; one time he dragged out an argument with Elise for three years before resolving it in five minutes.

Okay, so not all of his decisions were sound and wise. In fact, most of them weren't. But he was who he was, and so he dragged out with the goodbyes.

Until Salazar put a stop to his wallowing. By kicking him. Literally kicking him.

"Ow! What did you do that for?"

"You got places to be," Salazar said, nursing his own foot. "What are your legs made out of?"

"What's wrong with your feet, more like," Harrison replied, hobbling away from him. "It's like being hit by a sledgehammer!"

"Well, don't make me do it again!"

Harrison hid behind Godric.

"I don't want to go," he whined. "I know I have to, but I don't want to. Can't I just take you four with me?"

"I don't think that's how life and death works," Rowena said.

"Oh, don't logic me! I hate it when you do that."

"You know it's true," she said. "So get a move on. Say goodbye, and walk on. You've got people waiting for you. Two children."

"Everyone I know are children," Harrison muttered. "Well, almost everyone. Don't think Elise and Lucian counts as children anymore."

"And sometimes, you're the biggest child of them all," Helga countered with.

She wasn't wrong. He tapped Godric's shoulders, thinking. Lucy and Angel must be worried. Hell, everyone he knew and everyone who cared for him probably was. He wasn't easing their worries by staying for longer than necessary.

He let go of Godric, and sighed.

"I should be going," he said.

As soon as he said that, a path emerged from the ground.

"This is one weird afterlife," Harrison said as he looked at the path. "Or is this normal?"

"Nothing's normal with you," Rowena said. "Now, don't deviate from the path, don't get lost, don't stop unnecessarily long anywhere and hurry back home."

"That is definitely how a mother sounds like," Harrison said.

She swatted his shoulder.

"Well, I was a mother," she replied. "Although I never had that much trouble with my children."

"No, they waited until you were gone before causing a ruckus," Harrison said.

It wasn't as painful as he thought it would be. Sure, the hugging helped. They weren't shy about that now. And he knew they were there, in the paintings.

"I better get going then," he said at last. "Got a lot of years to still go through."

"At least there aren't any dismembered body parts on the path this time," Rowena said pointedly, looking down at the hem of her dress that previously had several bloodstains.

"You washed the blood off just fine in the lake!" Harrison protested.

"Go!" she said with a laugh.

It was like a normal goodbye, and that he would see them again the next day. That felt better than any tears and drawn-out farewells. He was shoved onto the path by Salazar and Helga, Godric yelled at him to definitely not deviate from the path, and Rowena shouted he better keep his clothes clean before bursting into giggles with the rest of them.

"You lot are children!" he yelled back. "I'm out of here!"

They waved, and he waved back, before he moved on. He didn't look behind him. He didn't steal another glance, a last glance. It had to be done, he had to move on and leave them behind again. He reminded himself they weren't alone, they weren't old and in pain; they were young and childish, happy and together.

Harrison reminded himself he wasn't alone. At home, he had so many waiting for him. His servants, all of his children, his friends and the Inferi. They were waiting for him to come back. Somehow, he knew that. He felt that.

So he took off running down the path, with a wide grin on his face.

-o-

Voldemort had stationed Death Eaters near the created Veil. He was contacted two months after Harrison's disappearance, and made it there in a great hurry.

Several of the Ministry workers were milling around, talking frantically to each other. Voldemort saw it happen in slow-motion.

The archway was bending in on itself. Legs and arms and torsos and heads began to fall away, along with hands and feet. Pale body parts, drained from blood, landed on the ground and began to dissolve into ashes. The Veil was fluttering inwards, never revealing what was on the other side, yet… inviting. Pulling. Standing several metres from it, Voldemort could feel it pulling at him.

"Get away from the Veil!" he yelled before following his own advice.

People fled as the archway began to collapse. There was no sound coming from the falling body parts. Perhaps there was an absence of all sounds near the Veil, as if the Veil took everything it could before going away. The Veil curled, as if in a great wind, and Bellatrix fell over.

Voldemort saw her being dragged towards the Veil, conjured a rope around her and pulled. She didn't seem to mind being pulled like a rag doll if it meant staying alive, and held onto the rope for dear life.

The archway collapse, and for a moment, the Veil held itself up for a long moment, gentle waving in the air. Then, a corner of it began to turn into ashes as well, and the ashes dissolved into nothing in the air. Soon enough, it was gone.

Voldemort's heart was pounding, the rope biting into his hands. In his eyes, it was more than a collapse of an impossible thing. It was the closing of a gate. Harrison fell through that Veil, and now that Veil no longer existed.

"My lord," Bellatrix said. "The gate… the Veil. Does this mean…?"

Did that mean the Nightmare Lord couldn't get out of the afterlife, even if he wanted to?

 _To be continued…_

* * *

Well, that doesn't sound so good.

Chapter six: Harrison sees more old faces, and the rebels are trying to find the location of the Nightmare Lord's home, in order to deepen the dispute between people in the Ministry and leading the magical community into chaos.

Until next time,

Tiro


	6. Chapter 6

**The Nightmare Man's Journey**

 **Summary** : Sequel to The Nightmare Man, set ten years later. Under the rule of the Dark Lord Voldemort, much still remains the same. Yet rebels still exist, and they fight to remove Voldemort's ally, the Nightmare Lord. Will they succeed?

 **Pairing/s** : None.

 **Warnings** : Mentions and descriptions of violence and gore, OOC-characters, dark!Harry, time travel and other such stuff.

It's good if you've read the prequels _The Nightmare Man_ and _Birth of a Nightmare Man_ , or some confusion might occur.

 **Disclaimers** : I don't own Harry Potter, nor do I make any money writing fanfiction.

 _NOTE: Do not re-upload on any other site; I do not give permission to do so._

-o-

I won't bore you with details on why it's so long between updates, just know this; this story will never be abandoned because no matter what happens, I love to write about the Nightmare Lord and his shenanigans. Also, I do believe I'm nearing the climax of the story, so hopefully you won't have to wait for too long to see the end of this story.

But now, enjoy this late chapter, everyone.

-o-

 **Chapter Six**

Harrison had slowed down, and was just walking along the path when he saw someone in the distance. No, two people were standing there. It didn't take him long to spot the red hair on the pair, and then he was off running again.

Fred and George met him with identical grins, and perhaps this meeting was more emotional than the four founders, because he hadn't felt George's, _his_ George, touch since he was in his twenties.

The fact that he burst into tears was a surprise, but Harrison could allow himself some crying considering George wasn't doing much better. Fred put his arms on their shoulders and said:

"Hey, let me in on this pity-party, I can do some crying too!"

Harrison only let go of George with one arm in other to pull Fred in tighter, and Fred was doing most of the laughing over their crying.

"You fucking idiot, how the hell do you keep getting into messes like this?" George finally said, hitting his shoulder.

"It's a gift," Harrison replied.

"More like a curse, mate," Fred told him while George hit him again. "A great curse, I tell you."

"Gift, curse, it's all the same in the end; I didn't ask for any of it."

"Never mind that, let me have a look at you."

"George, you've seen me before."

"Let me be a mother hen for a moment and have a look, shush now."

"Well, you do have the red hair…"

George hit him a third time, but it wasn't like he was trying to hurt Harrison. Then he took a hold of Harrison's head, and to be honest, he was setting himself up for another mother-joke but Harrison let it slide. It was nice to be cared for, especially by old friends.

"Look at you, all badass dark lord and all," Fred breathed out.

"I look more impressive surrounded by my children and the Inferi," Harrison reassured.

"You mean bloody frightening," George muttered.

"They add that final touch I need."

"You mean, so you can look frightening."

"I'm pretty good at looking frightening on my own," Harrison said. "I mean, not like this but if I'm really, _really_ angry."

"Yeah, like we don't know that," Fred said. "We're always watching you, you know?"

"What are you been up to here in the afterlife?" George wondered. "We haven't been able to see that part. We watched until you got pulled in and mate, how could you fall for that?"

"Like I said, it's a gift. Also, I'm an idiot."

"You're always an idiot," George said, patting his cheeks and letting him go.

"It feels like it's been a while since you were pulled through," Fred said. "You haven't just been standing around doing nothing, yeah?"

"I met Dumbledore," Harrison said. "And most of the people I killed before I went back in time. Hermione tried to kill me, it was kind of adorable."

"Only you would think that."

"It was slightly stressful being there," Harrison admitted. "Also, Dumbledore tried to forgive me, can you believe that?"

"How dare he!" George mock-gasped. "You're _so_ weird. Why did you meet them?"

They took one arm each, and began to lead him further down the path. Harrison tried to figure out the best way to explain it.

"I've always held onto the past," he finally said. "Even if I didn't want to, or even consciously thought about it. I kept saying I didn't care, but apparently I did. So I guess the afterlife decided to make me let it go, because letting go was the only way to move forward here."

"That sounds deep."

"I suppose it is, in a way. The afterlife might be a tad upset that I'm not being all philosophical about this journey."

"The afterlife should know better," Fred said.

"It really should," Harrison agreed. "Anyway, I do try to not point fingers at my past anymore, and I'm not sure if I've ever excused my behaviour. I do what I want because I want to, and if that's bad… well, then it's bad."

"So what did you hold onto?" George wondered.

"The demons my mind made up when I couldn't remember the real people."

"You mean, you kept the nightmares," Fred interjected.

"Precisely. Maybe I won't have them anymore, that would be nice. I mean, someone like me probably doesn't deserve sleeping well, but it would make me less grumpy and prone to cause chaos."

"And you being grumpy means you kill people."

"… Well, I usually keep them alive for a while in the dungeons depending on the mood."

"Oh no, mate, we've seen you fight. You don't keep a lot of people alive for so long that they can be imprisoned in the dungeons."

"That might be true," he admitted.

"Now kidnapping people, that's a different thing because then you want to test something out."

"That is also true. I do apologize to them. Sometimes. At least I think I do?"

"So that's all you did?" Fred asked to get Harrison back on track. "Meeting the people you killed?"

"No, I met the founders again! Had tea and everything, it was all disturbingly normal. Well, Godric threw me into a lake, which was a bit unusual. But yeah, tea!"

"Like a normal, sane person," George said. "I'm so proud of you."

"Thank you, mummy."

That earned him a fourth hit on the shoulder, but soon they dissolved into laughter and Harrison's heart twisted in agony. How was he supposed to keep giving them up? First the founders, and soon, Fred and George. He knew they were watching, he had the stone and could call on them, but once he did, he wanted to touch them. Once they did arrive to the world of the living, all he wanted to do was join them.

It wasn't fair on them either. The twins had never complained, but it must be hard to be summoned. Harrison knew the stories, how over time spirits may grow miserable and he didn't want that for them.

But he had to face it. Lose them like he had them now. Not at this moment, though. At this moment, they were laughing, George was hitting him still while Fred wobbled around, doubled over with laughter. It wasn't that funny, but at the same time it was. The more they laughed, the more they couldn't stop.

Harrison managed after a few minutes, but hearing the twins set him off again. He hadn't laughed like this for centuries.

Finally they managed to stop, and George wiped an arm over his eyes.

"Call me that again…" he began.

"Yes, mummy?" Harrison said.

"Don't get me started," Fred wheezed. "Please. My chest hurts. I'm dead, and my chest hurts!"

"Tell him to stop then!" George protested.

"Doesn't that usually encourage him to continue?"

Fred was right. If Harrison was told to stop doing something, he wanted to do the opposite. No wonder people got furious with him all the time.

"Yes, Mr Weasley; that does tend to encourage him."

Harrison turned around. They had walked for longer than he expected, and he never noticed the surroundings changing. But there was Severus Snape, lounging in what appeared to be a half-classroom in the middle of a forest clearing. It looked out of place, yet appeared completely natural.

Snape himself didn't look too impressed, but then again, did he ever look impressed at anything?

"Hello, professor," Harrison said.

"Only took you to become immortal and half-mad to use that title properly," Snape said.

"What can I say? In some aspects, I'm a very slow learner."

"Why are you here, professor?" George said.

"Don't ask me, I didn't choose it like you two."

Snape rose from the desk and wandered over. Harrison was used to his Severus, the man with silver in his eyes and more eye-rolls than was probably healthy. The child Severus.

"I called on you once, using the stone," Harrison said.

"You were an absolute mess at that time," Snape replied.

"I'm always a mess," he said.

"Yeah, professor, he really hasn't changed in that department," Fred said. "Except the hair, the hair's fine now."

"Growing it long helps, apparently," Harrison said.

It was strange to see the man who was his professor. The one who was around when Harrison was a child. Back when he was Harry Potter and didn't have all of time looming over him.

"We better keep going," George said. "I don't want you in the afterlife any longer than necessary."

"Right then," Harrison said. "Oh, professor, anyone you want to say hello to?"

Maybe he already knew the reaction, and asked the question to get it. Snape sneered at nothing in particular, as if sending greetings to someone would make him seem nice for a change.

"Sure that's all you want to do?" Harrison wondered. "I'll tell them that you sneered. I swear I will."

"Oh, for Merlin's sake, just get out of here and leave me alone," Snape muttered.

"You're the one who came here."

"I didn't choose it. Now, get out of here and stop being an idiot."

"I'm not sure I can do that, it's so easy being an idiot."

"Don't fall into a Veil again then," Snape said.

"Oh, I can try and follow that one because I don't want to do it again. Well then, see you around professor, if death will ever forgive me once I've left the afterlife this time around. Wait, hang on, I've never really been here before…"

The twins were giving Snape some looks, and he threw up his hands before walking behind Harrison, who was still muttering on about the afterlife, or rather what the train station he saw as a youth was meant to be; station before the afterlife, or afterlife itself. Or a really, really weird dream. Each twin grabbed an arm, and Snape gave him a push to propel him further.

"Goodbye, professor!" he called out.

Snape just shook his head, and there might have been a hint of a smile on his face, but Harrison wouldn't call him out on that. So he left the potions professor to do whatever he did in the afterlife, and when Fred proposed a race along the path, Harrison gave in and began running.

Better enjoy it while it lasted.

-o-

Meanwhile, the rebels were not thinking very hard about the Nightmare Lord himself, figuring they had pretty much solved the problem by throwing him into a Veil two months prior. No, their concern was the Nightmare Lord's manor.

It had never been registered at the Ministry, so the location of the home was not written up anywhere there. Hermione was starting to consider kidnapping a Death Eater to see if they knew, but the Nightmare Lord seemed like a secretive man. If she did end up kidnapping anyone, she had to take a pretty high-ranking Death Eater, whom both Voldemort and the Nightmare Lord would trust with that information.

Lucius Malfoy was a given that he could know, but as he was the Minister there was no chance of the rebels taking him. Bellatrix Lestrange might know, but who knows how many she would be able to kill before they had her restrained. That, and she rarely left Voldemort's side when in public. They might as well try kidnapping Voldemort before going after her, and Hermione wasn't stupid enough to dare that.

Who else could know? Harry Potter would know. He lived with the man. But Harry wasn't at Hogwarts anymore. Besides a sighting at the Ministry a few weeks back, he hadn't been seen out in public at all. Voldemort most likely knew some of their plans; that they were trying to find the Nightmare Lord's home, or at least kill the people who resided there, and thus warned Harry and the others to remain hidden.

Hermione knew there were unknowns in the manor as well. Servants they had never seen, or something of the sort. But rumours were that the Nightmare Lord's servants were connected to the lord himself. Having him gone had probably weakened them. With the Veil collapsed, she felt more confident than she had been in years.

The loss of the Veil wasn't a problem in her eyes. She knew it wouldn't hold. Veils weren't meant to be created the way the rebels had done it, and was definitely not made to remain. Perhaps this even worked in their favour. Should something, against all the things that was logical, be able to come out of the Veil, perhaps they could only return through the Veil they had fallen through? If so, the Nightmare Lord was no longer their problem.

Either way, Hermione counted on what she knew about Veils; once you fell through, you didn't come back. No matter whom you were. She had already put the Nightmare Lord behind her. He was no longer a problem for them.

"No signs of Potter," Ginny reported as she entered the room. "Again."

"He's not coming out now that his so-called saviour isn't here to protect him," Ron said where he sat by Hermione's side, twirling his wand. "He's not stupid; he probably knows we're looking for him."

"Nothing on the children he's supposed to have there?" Ginny said. "That Muggleborn-girl, or the other one?"

"You mean the one we can't get confirmed, a ten-year old child?" Hermione said. "No. The Muggleborn goes to Hogwarts, but Potter appears to have taken her with him."

"We should've snuck in earlier," Ron said. "She could've given us the location of the manor."

"That doesn't have to be true. She could just be shuffled there by others, not knowing the real location herself."

"True," Ron said. "Alright, we should've gotten Potter earlier."

"There's no point in saying what we should've done," Hermione said. "We have to focus on what we can do now. We'll continue to search for the manor. It should be away from people and other villages. I don't think anyone lives near him."

"Things are going well at the Ministry at least," Ginny said. "Lucius Malfoy is holding it together for now, but people on Voldemort's side have always questioned the existence of the Nightmare Lord. With him gone, the chaos will just reach deeper and deeper, until not even Lucius Malfoy can hold them at bay."

"A part of that chaos is actually the Nightmare Lord's doing, or rather what he hasn't done for ten years," Hermione said.

"Confirming he's real," Ron finished. "Can you thank an enemy and still hate them?"

"He's supposed to be immortal," Ginny said. "Do you think he'll be coming back?"

"Not from a Veil," Hermione said. "That's impossible."

"The man can survive without his lungs and heart," Ginny said.

"Yeah, but now his whole body is not on this plane of existence. I'd like to see him come back from falling through a Veil."

"Anyway, we have other things to focus on," Ron said. "Like actually finding his manor."

"Grid searches are just silly to try out," Hermione said. "Sure way to be discovered. Voldemort has captured some of us, but as long as we keep moving like we have done for years, he won't find the rest of us so easily."

"It should be required by law to have everyone's homes registered," Ginny said as she looked at the maps Hermione had spread out on the table. "Except those in hiding."

"It wouldn't be fair, I suppose," Hermione replied.

"Come on, the Nightmare Lord is supposed to be the big bad. Can't he handle it if someone tries to attack his home?"

"It doesn't matter now. We'll go for isolated areas, carefully though. We don't want to be caught by any surprises. Completely destroying the Nightmare Lord's home and servants will serve us well in the future."

"Once the chaos at the Ministry has reached its maximum, not even Malfoy can remain in power," Ginny said. "Not without protests, which can lead to war. That will give us the best chance to strike back for all they've done."

Hermione nodded. The magical world had been steady the last ten years. She knew that if she hadn't declared herself a rebel, she would most likely have a somewhat normal life now. But that didn't matter. They were wrong. Malfoy and Voldemort, the Death Eaters… they were wrong, and dangerous, and she would fight to the death to stop them from continuing ruling the magical community in England.

-o-

Rabastan noticed that the tree garden was beginning to act strange. Well, the tree garden had always been weird to him, but then again, it was trees that grew out of human hearts and consumed blood and human flesh. They were bound to be weird.

But now they had sort of migrated, from their spot to along the edges of the wards. It didn't help that none of the servants knew the answer as to why, and the Dementors just shrugged when he tried to ask them.

It felt like a barrier. The trees were acting like a barrier, protecting them should the wards, for some reason, fail. Had Harrison planned for the trees to react that way? Rabastan didn't know why else they would move, if the man hadn't somehow ordered them to do so in case of emergencies.

Rabastan often wandered along the wards. The manor was large, and at the same time, stifling. Wherever he went was a reminder that Harrison was gone. The servants lay deathly still, not dead but not alive either. Lucian and Elise remained stubbornly awake, but they didn't have energy most days to do much more than be with Lucy and Angel. Elise sometimes went with Voldemort, but always let him side-Apparate with her, instead of wasting her own magic on Apparating.

They had all grown more sombre, in their own ways. Angel kept disappearing on them, but Rabastan knew now where to find her; in Harrison's bed, tucked beneath the covers, with one of her numerous plush toys that Harrison had gifted to her over the years.

One such day, Angel gone like the wind, he waited for a while before going to Harrison's bedroom. Angel peeked out from beneath the covers, and then sat up.

"Why isn't he coming back?" she said. "Is he never coming back?"

He should lie. Rabastan knew that was a thing, lying to kids to make them feel better. But Harrison never lied to them.

"I don't know," he said. "I have no idea if he's coming back."

Angel nodded, her eyes shiny.

"But do you think he's trying to come back?" she continued, fiddling with the blanket on top.

"Yes."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because Harrison is stubborn," Rabastan said as he sat down. "Even when he was a child. He never gave up, and more often than not did the opposite of what people told him to do."

"Really?"

"Yeah. So if someone throws him into a Veil, you can bet all you have he'll do everything to get out, just to spite them."

Angel giggled.

"I hope he does it soon," she continued. "I miss him, and it's so quiet and weird without him. Lucian was crying yesterday, and his marks on his skin are kind of fading away. I don't think he wants them to fade."

Rabastan had noticed that. Harrison said he had marked Lucian. The marks meant the magic was slowly seeping away, so it was no wonder Lucian hated it. He could see his master's magic disappear.

"Let's do our best to keep them cheerful," Rabastan said.

"He lets me read to him," Angel said.

"Yeah? How about we go and do that now, huh?"

Angel nodded and climbed out of the bed, running ahead of Rabastan on her way to Lucian. They found him in the library, and he didn't complain as Angel selected a book and climbed up on his lap. She was already ten, and perhaps some would say she was too big for stories, but Harrison seemed determined to let her and Lucy remain as childish as long as they wanted to be.

Perhaps because Harrison had never really been allowed to be a child. He never had anyone who read him stories, and never had anyone he could curl up with.

Lucian let her lean against him, tired eyes following the text as Angel read aloud, but he was smiling at least. He wasn't staring at the fading marks for now, and that would have to be good enough.

In his head, Rabastan sent a wish. Or rather, _Harrison, you better get your arse going and come back, or I'll smack you silly!_

-o-

When Harrison wondered out loud how long Fred and George were going to stay with him, the twins turned to him and said in unison:

"Until you're out, of course!"

"Out?"

"Out of the afterlife," George clarified. "I'm not leaving you before that, and don't you even try to convince me otherwise."

"So you two are what, my guides?"

"Would be if we knew where the road is going," Fred said. "Which we don't. But it'll be fine!"

"It has to end at some point," Harrison said. "We've passed a lot of people who are pissed off at me, but that doesn't help me knowing _when_ I killed them. Are we even going through my life in order? I mean, professor Snape showed up out of nowhere, and you did as well!"

"Well, I suppose we're doing it in a semi-straight line," Fred said. "With a few exceptions."

"You mean you don't recognize any of these faces?" George said, throwing out his arms.

Harrison looked around. Faces, screaming, moaning, crying, begging. Arms and legs and torsos. Blood everywhere. Apparently whenever he did this, it had been a bloody, gory time. He probably was angry. Harrison had been angry a lot.

"I never paid much attention to faces when I was just aiming to kill as many as possible," he admitted.

"You're completely useless," George said.

"I know; it's aggravating isn't it?"

"Don't sound so bloody happy about it!"

Was it bad, that he flew past all of his victims without caring? Most likely. He could force himself to stop and think about it, but he still wouldn't care or feel sorry. Besides, in his opinion starting to regret who he killed was insulting to the dead. Like, he couldn't bring them back to life anyway.

Also, he didn't regret it. So it would be false from his side, and they wouldn't feel comforted anyway. Who could ever be comforted by their killer showing regret? They had to have the heart of a saint for that.

So he carried on. Sometimes the path was calm, and devoid of people except for him and the twins. Other times, blood seeped onto the path and half-rotten hands grasped at his ankles. People's screams echoed. Their accusations and questions, in various languages. Harrison watched them, but didn't stop.

He would probably never stop killing people. For the last ten years, in the public eye he had been rather calm and non-violent. That was probably why people had such a problem with believing he was the ancient lord who could, and would kill entire villages.

How could he change their opinions, without resorting to slaughtering a whole load of people? Because he could go for the slaughter, but that was boring and predictable, and obviously not working considering ten years have passed, and people already doubted him.

A hand managed to get a hold of his robe, and he looked down. A young woman with gouged out eyes held onto him, her mouth opened wide. Several of her teeth were broken. Her grip wasn't strong, and she seemed more terrified than anything else. Harrison didn't remember her. Her face didn't resurface in any distant memories. He knew he didn't remember everything in his life. His brain wasn't capable of holding onto all of the memories. Some might be in the Pensive, but not her death. She probably wasn't worth remembering in his eyes.

He shook her hand off, and moved on.

"Why? Why? _Why_?" was a reoccurring question, coming from all those who still had a face and more importantly, a mouth to talk with.

Harrison figured "Because why not?" would not make a good answer, and remained silent.

"These calm bits," Fred said. "What are those?"

"When I wasn't a murderous bastard, I imagine," Harrison answered. "The clothes people are wearing are somewhat familiar… we might get to a longer, calm stretch soon."

"Really?" George said.

"Yes, because I was locked up for a while and I only killed a few people over those years."

"Why?"

"I was bored, and they were too careless."

"I mean, we do remember watching you in that prison," Fred said. "It was dark though. Couldn't really see you."

"And that time when you sang a lullaby for three months straight was a bit insanity-inducing," George added.

"Not to mention when you decided to scream. Scared me half to death! Figuratively speaking, of course."

"Of course," Harrison said. "You listened to all that? You must have had better things to do. I was essentially driving myself mad for some two hundred years or so."

"You drove us mad, sometimes, but we always returned," George said. "Even if you didn't know we watched, we didn't want to leave you alone in that room indefinitely."

"You two are so nice," Harrison said. "That's weird."

They came upon a peaceful area, no blood or gore, and the path stretched out even as darkness began to surround them. When Harrison saw the stones come out of the ground, building walls, he felt a shiver work its way through his body.

"Oh, I know those stones," he said. "That smell… we're reached it."

The stones kept building. The path was still there, but it was clear the years of isolation in that prison cell would be mimicked in the afterlife as well as it could be mimicked.

"Is that mould?" George said.

"Mould and rot, wet walls and that never-ending dripping sound," Harrison said, laughing the way he had done when he was left alone in that dark, dark room. "Oh, I _hated_ that dripping sound. Never stopped. Hundreds of years, and it never stopped."

The path was encased in old stone, and the chill set in. The twins lit their wands, casting some light over the walls. Harrison gave in to a childish need, and took a hold of their hands.

"Sorry," he said when they looked at him. "It's just… bad memories. Who knew being left alone in a prison cell would drive me madder than all those years killing people did?"

Fred and George looked at each other, and then squeezed his hands.

"Better walk through it quickly then," Fred said. "It really stinks. I mean, I might even prefer the smell of blood to this."

Harrison didn't need to be told twice to start moving and off they went. Down the path, nearing the end of his stroll through his own life.

-o-

Hermione hadn't approved their group to go out searching today, but they had gone anyway. They hadn't left any information of where they were going, because it was such a strange area to head to, that they feared she wouldn't let them.

But they had heard rumours about it, by mainly Muggles in the surrounding area. How they always stayed away from one particular place. How they sometimes heard a humming in the air, and felt cold on nights it should be warm.

Hermione had assumed the Nightmare Lord lived nowhere near Muggles, and the place they were searching was near Muggles. They figured if they found out this was actually the home of the Nightmare Lord, she would forgive them for going out without permission. If it wasn't… then she didn't need to know.

They quietly but quickly snuck between trees in the cover of darkness, the moon helping them see. They stopped, and one said:

"Look! Do you see the wards?"

It was a very faint shimmering in the air. The humming of magic could be heard.

"Strange for it to be seen," another murmured.

"Well, if Hermione is right, maybe the original wards failed and this is someone else's?"

"She never said that."

"She said everything the Nightmare Lord had might be connected to his magic, and with him gone, all of his magic is gone as well."

"Oh, yeah. Alright, so it's someone else who put up the new wards?"

Most of them were young, around Hermione's age. The younger ones had been students ten years ago, and decided to become rebels instead of adjusting to the shift in power. They were from different Houses, barring Slytherin, and thought like Hermione; the ones in power now were wrong, and thus they would fight against it.

Amongst them were the Patil twins. They never went anywhere without each other, and decided to come here on the chance it was the home of the Nightmare Lord. It wasn't that they wanted to show Hermione she was wrong in her assumption, but more help her in her goals, and give her a bit of a break.

"Could be Voldemort," one man said.

He was a former Ravenclaw, the Prefect who greeted Padma and other first years when they arrived at their new House. Robert did work in Diagon Alley, but was a rebel who offered a temporary safe haven in the back of his shop for other rebels. It was only in the last three years he had become more active.

"Be careful," Padma cautioned everyone as they readied to step out and examine the wards. "Better run than be dead."

They all nodded, taking out their wands.

Once out in the moonlight, they hesitated a bit. But once Robert waved his hand, they spread out. Padma and Parvati remained quite close together, walking up towards the wards. Once they were close enough, they began to see through it.

Twisted trees stood lined up against the wards, black in the moonlight. But beyond them, a manor with several towers was revealed. It wasn't the size of a castle, but built almost whimsically, a thing between a house and a castle. However, the stones were dark, and cracked, and it fit with what they imagined the Nightmare Lord's home to look like.

"I think we found it," Parvati said. "It must be his house!"

"We need to get inside," Padma replied.

They all gathered once more, hidden behind some of the twisted tress. There were no lights on in the manor, so everyone in there could be asleep. As long as they didn't trip the wards by accident, the group could plan what they should do.

"We must expect traps," one woman said.

She was one of the older ones, having graduated long before Albus Dumbledore's death. She knew Lily and James Potter from their time at Hogwarts, and had always tried to get a hold of Harry Potter to have him answer for his betrayal of his own parents. She had jumped at the chance of finding the Nightmare Lord's home and confronting Harry Potter there.

"Of course," Robert said. "But we must also be quick."

"I've got my broom with me."

Tamsin had played as a Chaser, and had often used her skills to attack from above. If they could sneak her in, she could survey the area and discover any traps leading to the house.

"Alright. Now then, how to get inside the wards…"

Padma saw, in the corner of her eye, how one tree seemed to move. But when she looked, no branches were moving. There was no wind. A trick of the eye? Or bad light? The moon was getting obscured by clouds.

"What's wrong with the trees?"

"What?" Padma said.

"It's just… it looked like one of them moved."

"You saw it too?"

They all rose from the crouched positions, watching the trees. They truly looked horribly, tall and twisted, and the tree bark appeared wet and grey, almost to the point of rotting. Padma risked lighting the end of her wand tip to see better, and gasped.

There was blood on the trees. More than that she didn't have time to think, because the tree before her moved. One branch was around her middle before she could run away, and lifted her up. Another gripped her arm, and tore it off. The scream tore out of her throat, but already her leg was grasped. There was a sickening sound as her hip popped out of its socket, then the sensation of her flesh ripping apart. The branch holding her twisted her around so the leg was torn off with ease, and she screamed again.

Better run than be dead. Padma didn't want to be left behind, she didn't want to die but she couldn't be selfish at this point in time.

"Run!" she screamed.

The trees moved, the roots tearing through the ground as if they were getting ready to walk. She could see the group starting to flee, but roots and branches caught them before they could Apparate out of there.

"Apparate!" she yelled at them.

She should try. Even with an arm and leg gone, she had to at least try. But it was as if the trees knew, because they tossed everyone into the wards, even her. She landed hard, and sobbed. She was still holding her wand, but she couldn't get up on her own. She was a liability.

"Get out!" she called. "Hurry, get out!"

She didn't know much about other rebels and their various actions and plans, anyway. She always made sure she didn't know too much, in case she ever got caught. Let the servants or whoever lived in the Nightmare Lord's home waste their time on her.

A branched grasped her, and pulled. Others screamed as they were pulled too. Blood sprayed through the air, and Padma saw the trees shiver as they were covered in blood.

They liked the blood? They _wanted_ the blood?

Then she saw her own arm be devoured by one of the trees. The trees _ate_ flesh? Ate human flesh?

A gurgling sound came from the side, and she saw Inferi come out into the moonlight. They moved slowly at first, but once they saw discarded limbs on the ground they screamed and made a run for it.

But one of the Inferi, a female had a spear, and she howled. All of the Inferi stopped, and backed off. The Inferi woman looked at Padma, then at the trees.

The trees began to gather the body parts, eating them and Padma drew in a shuddering breath. They had assumed the world was safer, less dangerous with the Nightmare Lord out of the game.

Who knew even his trees was as bloodthirsty and twisted as him?

"Oi! Calm down a bit there!"

A man came from the house, and the trees didn't attack him. She recognized his face. Rabastan Lestrange. Why was he at the house?

"What do we have here then?" he said and walked closer. "You lot, you killed all but one already? You greedy bastards."

He was talking to the trees.

"Let's see her. Let go of her leg. Let go!"

He kicked at the branch holding Padma, and it leg go. He stopped her bleeding with a few spells and looked down at her.

"Why are you here?" she managed to ask.

"I live here," Rabastan replied.

"You're… a Death Eater. Why do you live here?"

"Oh, you're thinking about this dimension's Rabastan," Rabastan said. "You see, I came from a different one so technically, I was a Death Eater there but not here."

Someone else was running up to them, and she saw Draco. It was Draco, yet… not the Draco she was used to seeing in Diagon Alley.

"And he's not from here, either," Rabastan supplied to her, pointing at Draco. "I stopped her bleeding."

"Why bother?" Draco said.

"You know, she might know something."

"Sneaking around in the dark, being a rebel… yeah, she might know something but she was also probably trying to attack us. Why let her live?"

"You're starting to sound like Harrison. Let Voldemort decide her fate."

 _No_. Padma had heard horror stories about how Voldemort interrogated rebels. He didn't leave much of a mind behind once he was done. She would be alive, but rendered insane.

Draco looked at her.

"I suppose he can have one rebel to interrogate, because I'm not taking any of those bodies back from the trees. They whine when they don't get enough food."

"Food?" Padma said, unable to stop herself.

"The trees," Rabastan said as he took the wand from her. "That's their nutrients. Human blood and human flesh. They gobble it up like greedy children."

"And make a mess," Draco said, wrinkling his nose.

"It's just blood."

"That's not blood, Rabastan, that's a liver."

"Alright, blood and some organs," Rabastan said. "They'll eat it up eventually. If not, the Inferi are here to grab the leftovers."

The Inferi woman poked Padma with the end of her spear.

"Nope, you can't have her," Rabastan hurried to say to the Inferi woman.

The woman growled, and then tapped the spear against Padma's face.

"She wants the eyes."

The new voice had Padma craning her neck. A woman stood some distance away, pale and dark shadows beneath her eyes.

"Elise, why are you up?" Draco said. "I specifically told you _not_ to get up."

"Someone tried to enter master's home," Elise said.

"Yeah, and we had them from the start."

"What?" Padma said.

"You think we made the wards visible for fun's sake?" Rabastan said. "That was a fake line. The real wards stretched out a good ten feet beyond that. You were inside for a while; the trees were just taking their sweet time with you."

"We're not… the first ones they attacked?"

"Muggles know better than to come here. But yeah, a couple of witches and wizards might have been snatched by the trees. Elise, would you mind fire-calling Voldemort? He's got a free rebel."

"Her eyes…"

"Yeah, yeah, the Inferi leader wants the eyes. I'll give them to her."

Padma tried to move away. She saw an arm lying a few feet away. She recognized Parvati's ring. So quick… had it even taken the trees a minute to finish them all off?

"Now, I know, you don't want to have your eyes taken away," Rabastan said as he grabbed her leg and dragged her back. "But you put yourself in this position."

"Monster…"

"Yeah, we're monsters," Rabastan said as he turned her over, a knife in his hands. "But we all got a role to play in this world, right? Right now, you're playing a losing role."

"He's never coming back," Padma said.

She had already lost. So she wanted to do whatever damage she could, even if it was only words.

"The Nightmare Lord is never coming back!" she spat out at him.

Rabastan's face didn't change much; a frown, his lips thinning a bit.

"Maybe," he said. "Maybe not. But in the meantime, I do my thing, and you do yours. Yours, unfortunately, is to die."

She couldn't close her eyes as he cut them out. He took care with them and when the first one was gone, she saw him hand it off to the Inferi, who grunted and moved to put it on a necklace made out of eyes.

She looked up at the sky. Her wounds were throbbing, and the blood running down her cheek was warm. She hated herself for not leaving a message to Hermione. A sign of where they had gone. Or even firing off a Patronus, to give a warning.

 _Don't come here_.

Because even with the Nightmare Lord gone, his killing and carnage was taken up by things he must have created, and friends he had made. Even if he was gone, his chaos seemed to continue if one wandered too close.

She saw the knife come down again, and moments later, her tears stung as they mingled with the blood. She could still see, even if her eye was out of the socket. At least until Rabastan cut off the nerves, and Padma was left in the dark.

Her body was broken, missing pieces, and she was forced to listen to crunching sounds. It sounded like bones breaking. Were the trees eating their fill? How could a tree even eat? How could the Nightmare Lord be so cruel and insane, that he created trees that demanded human flesh?

Rabastan and Draco talked nearby. They mentioned Harry Potter in passing, then Lucy and Angel, names Padma didn't know. Something about the servants. They quieted eventually, and she heard someone come closer. She dug her free hand into the fresh, cool earth.

"Now what do we have here?" came Voldemort's silky voice. "Only one?"

"The trees were hungry," came Rabastan's voice. "I'd say be nice to her, she's got nothing left but I suppose you won't care?"

"I'm one of the evil ones. We don't care what the good people want."

With that, she was grabbed and Apparated.

 _To be continued…_

* * *

I didn't quite know where to end the chapter, so here's an abrupt ending.

Chapter seven: Harrison nears the end of his walk down memory lane. Who will he meet last? And will he find a way out?

See you later,

Tiro


	7. Chapter 7

**The Nightmare Man's Journey**

 **Summary** : Sequel to The Nightmare Man, set ten years later. Under the rule of the Dark Lord Voldemort, much still remains the same. Yet rebels still exist, and they fight to remove Voldemort's ally, the Nightmare Lord. Will they succeed?

 **Pairing/s** : None.

 **Warnings** : Mentions and descriptions of violence and gore, OOC-characters, dark!Harry, time travel and other such stuff.

It's good if you've read the prequels _The Nightmare Man_ and _Birth of a Nightmare Man_ , or some confusion might occur.

 **Disclaimers** : I don't own Harry Potter, nor do I make any money writing fanfiction.

 _NOTE: Do not re-upload on any other site; I do not give permission to do so._

-o-

Writer's block can go fuck off, I hate it.

With that out of the way, enjoy this chapter!

-o-

 **Chapter Seven**

When confronted by the long, narrow path that showed the years of isolation, Harrison wondered how he had managed to keep any sanity from that time in his life. Even with Fred and George at his side, and light burning from the tips of their wands, he was still driven crazy by the close walls, that rotten smell, and the never-ending dripping.

"Can I gouge my brain out for a moment and you can drag my corpse along until I wake up again?" he wondered after a while.

"You can handle it," George said.

"No, I can't. It itches."

"Where?" Fred wondered.

" _Everywhere_. And that bloody dripping water, doesn't it have anything better to do than drive me insane?!"

"Harrison, deep breaths," George said. "Stop focusing on it."

"Don't you remember me mentioning that it _never_ stopped? Hard to ignore something that never stopped making that bloody noise!"

He screamed that at the walls, and the dripping sound… continued, because of course it did. He whined, stomped on the place and then carried on. He felt like ripping his hands away from Fred and George. He felt like killing himself, at least temporarily but they caught on and held his hands even tighter. Flashes of pain went up his arms.

That actually made him calm down a bit. Pain was always a distraction, and at times he welcomed it. Trapped inside of that cell, he had lived for the times he could distract himself with pain.

"How long were you in there?" George asked.

"I don't know. Two centuries? More? Less? It was endless in my opinion. You don't realize how slowly time can pass until you've got absolutely _nothing_ to do but await your own starvation and subsequent wake-up call from said starvation."

"You starved to death?" Fred said.

"In the cell? Oh, loads of times. They sometimes left me in there for years with nothing, not even water except for the annoying dripping one I couldn't reach, so it's not like I had a choice. The first time, I think they believed I would die for real. Their faces looked funny when they realized I hadn't."

Starving to death was one of the less fun deaths. The pain was different. It spread from his stomach to the rest of his body, and disappeared only to come back again, until it left for a final time. Harrison knew at that point, the hallucinations would set it. He imagined feeling his own organs shut down in desperation, how in the end only his heart, lungs and brain was functioning until those had to give up as well.

How many times had it happened in a row? He couldn't remember. His body somehow remained somewhat in good condition, not skeletal like he felt it should look like after starving to death several times. He couldn't even speak during those times, his throat too parched, his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. Come to think about it, he died from thirst plenty of times too.

"Harrison, come back."

He snapped back to attention. He had stopped, and the twins were looking at him.

"If that's the look you had in your eyes when you starved to death over and over again…" George began.

"What look?" Harrison said, blinking.

"Despair," Fred said. "We should've been there."

"I had no way of calling for you."

"We should've gone there anyway," George said. "To at least keep you company."

"No matter, I had the endless dripping-sound to drive me mad. I wouldn't have been a very good company."

"I'm sorry we weren't there," George said.

"It's in the past," he insisted.

"It still haunts you."

"Many things haunts me, I'll survive. Let's carry on."

He wanted out of the darkness. Away from the smell, and the sounds. Yes, he wanted to escape. He wanted to run like a coward, which was just fine in his book. Coward, monster, lord, master, he was all that. He was reckless and stupid and somewhat sentimental. He was annoying and good at being annoyed.

Harrison was a lot of things, and everything in his life had a connection to that. Even that stupid prison room. It was in there he learnt patience. He learned that while he liked darkness, he was also fond of light. He realized that while he often preferred silence from his servants, he began to yearn for their company, finally figuring out how much they meant to him.

Yes, the dripping sound was still annoying. Every time he heard it, he felt it in his bones. Did the Ministry leak water? Or did they not fix it just to annoy someone even more? Harrison couldn't tell. Now he supposed he shouldn't care.

"Isn't there a Muggle saying, light at the end of the tunnel?" Fred wondered.

"Is there?" Harrison said. "Oh, there is. Yes, they have it. That bloody light could do us all a favour and hurry the hell up!"

With that, he sped up, tugging the twins behind him as he trudged on.

-o-

The day came at long last, when all of Lucian's tattoos and hair colour disappeared. Voldemort hardly recognized him, not only because of his changed appearance, but also how listless he was. He just sat in a chair, and refused to look at himself.

The one time Voldemort was witness to it, Lucian had broken down sobbing once he saw his unmarked skin in the mirror. The Dark Lord had left to give him some much-needed privacy. To others, it may not mean much. To him, and Elise, it meant Harrison's magic, cause of Lucian's changes, had disappeared from his second oldest servant.

As it did, Voldemort saw the despair finally enter Elise's face. She no longer believed her master was coming back. He started going by every day, just to check up on them, and more than once she was having panic attacks, giving in to her fear of falling unconscious like the other servants.

Apparently this made her impossible to have around Lucy and Angel, who both were getting stressed and anxious the longer Harrison had been gone. The last few months had been a trying time for them, as neither was used to have him completely gone from their everyday life for more than a few days.

Harry kept the girls away as much as he could, but he also helped Draco and Rabastan in caring for the unconscious servants. Eventually, Angel began to hide out where they had put Ywgraine and Joanne, as she had spent a lot of time with them ever since she was a toddler. Sometimes, she'd snuggle up to Severus.

Lucy reacted by getting furious. Oh, when Voldemort would come to the manor to check up on them, he would hear her yelling quite often. Sometimes she was just standing outside, screaming into the air. She punched the walls, kicked them, and refused to listen to anyone for hours. Harry tried to get her to do homework, but she refused, nearly destroying her books in her rage, screaming:

"I don't care anymore! I'll fail school, I don't care!"

One day, she was apparently ripping Harrison's pillows apart, screaming and crying at the same time. Harry had stopped Voldemort from entering, and they stood in the hallways until she went quiet. Only then did Harry enter. Voldemort stayed at the doorway and watched Harry picked her up. She was asleep, face wet with tears, and her eyes swollen. She would feel awful when she woke up, Voldemort figured, but who said she didn't feel awful even on the days she woke without having cried herself to sleep?

"Do you need any help? She's not a child anymore."

"It's fine," Harry said. "She doesn't really weigh that much."

"She's not having trouble eating, does she?"

"Not yet. Or at least, she eats when it's not at the dining table or anywhere near the dining room. She keeps expecting Harrison to walk in, even after all this time."

Voldemort nodded as he walked with Harry to Lucy's room, not far from Harrison's. Only when Harry had put Lucy to bed and closed the door behind him did Voldemort say:

"And how are you doing?"

"Most of the time I'm alright. But… it's… I just want him to come home. The air is stifling, and Lucian won't even talk anymore, and Elise keeps crying and panicking. Rabastan is the only one really keeping it together, but it's only a matter of time before he breaks down too."

"Draco?"

"He keeps busy with the servants. If he doesn't, he… well, I try not to think about it."

Voldemort nodded. Keeping busy was most likely what held Draco together for now.

At this point though, it didn't matter if they captured the rebel leaders or not, not to the people still awake in this home; it wouldn't bring their lord back. Their eccentric and reckless and stupid lord.

He couldn't even say Harrison was coming back, because he wasn't sure he believed it anymore. With the man-made Veil collapsed, how was Harrison supposed to come back anyway? How did one return from the dead, when the gate you went through no longer existed?

"Are you any closer to finding the leaders?" Harry asked.

"We've made some progress there," he said. "But between what happened to Harrison and the growing rift at the Ministry, I don't feel like it's making any difference."

"Would they get captured if you use bait to lure them out?" he asked.

Voldemort was no idiot, and it didn't take him long to figure out what Harry really meant.

"I'm not using you as bait," he said.

"If I say it's okay?"

"No way. I'm not risking you."

"Why not?"

"Because you are precious to Harrison."

"Well, he's not here!" Harry said, voice bouncing off the walls.

He looked at Harrison's door down the hall, and swallowed.

"I keep looking for him," Harry whispered. "In here. All the time. If I'm in the living room, I'm waiting for him to burst in with something silly or stupid he did. If I'm in the kitchen, I imagine him coming in and being such a picky eater like always. In the hall, in my own bedroom… I'm going crazy staying indoors."

It would probably help. Dangling bait like Harry Potter out in the open would lure the rebels out eventually. Voldemort sighed and pressed down against his nose, as if to ward off the oncoming headache. Harrison wouldn't approve. Dear gods, he would be _furious_.

But then again, he wasn't here, and Harry clearly wanted to help.

"No chances," Voldemort said.

"What?"

"We're not taking any chances," he repeated. "For the rebels to catch you before we catch them."

"So… I can help?"

"If it ensures the capture of the rebel leaders faster than our pace, then… oh, Harrison will kill me for this."

"Only if he finds out," Harry said.

Only if he comes back. Voldemort was willing to risk death if it meant Harrison would return and cease this mourning that was happening in his own manor.

-o-

They began to plan how they would lure the rebels out. Harry Potter was perhaps not very politically active, but he still had a part to play in the rebels' minds; to them, he was a traitor. If they could kill him, it would boost moral. Besides, if he wasn't important in their eyes, they wouldn't have tried to kill him so many times over the last ten years.

Voldemort had Harry Potter appear at Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade for short visits. Then he had Harry venture out to Muggle London, and visiting shops that were more secluded. Just for a short time, before Apparating away.

It only took a few days before Harry was being tailed. Voldemort recognized the man as a low-level Ministry worker, and took note of his name and face to have him removed from the Ministry, and life itself, once the leaders had been caught.

Harry played his part perfectly, acting suspicious but still appearing somewhat relaxed. He came to the Ministry several times as well.

Soon he had more people tailing him, but what they did not know was that Harry was never alone. Bellatrix Lestrange was famously known for her unsubtle nature, and thus people didn't think she could be sneaky.

But she went so far to change her entire appearance, looking different every time, just so no rebel could connect her to Harry. She wore Muggle clothes even, without protesting. At first, Lucius had expressed his doubts about only having Bellatrix so close to Harry, but Voldemort knew she would rather die than let anything happen to Harry.

As bad as her relationship with Harrison started, she would now call the Nightmare Lord a good friend of hers, and since Harry was important to Harrison, Harry was important to her.

"Besides, Harrison would kill us both if something happened," Bellatrix told Voldemort.

She was perhaps the only one that still sounded confident that Harrison would return. Voldemort didn't know she was capable of delivering pep-talks, but apparently she delivered pep-talks to both Elise and Lucian back at Harrison's manor.

"She's… chipper," Harry said a week after they had started the plan. "Actually, it's kind of nice."

"Is it?" Voldemort wondered.

"Yeah. You'd think she's just crazy, but she can be pretty calming too. Plus, she's a bit like Harrison."

"… It's the cackling laughter, isn't it?"

"Yeah, pretty much. That and they're both pretty fucking crazy even without said laughter."

Voldemort nodded. He was a bit surprised Bellatrix had such a positive effect on anyone, let alone the Nightmare Lord's servants. Lucian was still distraught, but he did spend time with Lucy and Angel. Elise still panicked but had calmed down to the degree she could be around the kids for most of the day.

Lucy was still angry, and upset, while Angel was more listless. She read stories to the comatose servants, and took naps next to them. Lucy sometimes sat with the servants, and Voldemort had heard her threatening Severus to blow up his precious potions lab if he didn't wake up.

He pretended to not hear her crying when Severus didn't even stir.

-o-

The end of the darkness and that never-ending dripping was very nice, almost as nice as when Harrison did actually escape the prison cell. Although, back then, he caused chaos at the Ministry and here it were just more dead people littering the path they were walking on. He kicked aside a hand.

"You killed people literally minutes after escaping?" George asked.

"Yes," Harrison replied. "I needed the exercise."

The path eventually cleared up, and he wondered what would happen next. He was nearing the end of it, right? Ten years was nothing to him. So what would he encounter at the end of the path? A way back to the world of the living? Or just an end, with no way of escape? Harrison wasn't sure he dared to think too much about it.

The twins dared to let go of his hands, and instead walked on either side of him, when the voice came:

"Harrison."

He knew that voice. It was calmer than he expected, as he turned and looked at Minerva McGonagall. Dressed in her teacher robes, pointy hat on, she looked the same as always. Stern and powerful. As he saw her standing there and looking him dead in the eyes, Harrison was amazed he had managed to kill her back when he was still Harry Potter.

Had she been in the afterlife when he first entered? Had she been amongst those he once considered friends and acquaintances? Harrison couldn't remember. But perhaps she wanted to meet him alone. Perhaps one could choose that. She was also one of the few he hadn't wanted to kill. Could the afterlife sense that?

"Harrison…" George began.

"It's alright," he said. "Stay here. I don't think she'll do anything."

"You killed her," Fred said.

"Yeah, but unlike me, professor McGonagall is quite reasonable, and besides, if she wanted to kill me, I don't think she would've given me a chance to even hear her coming. I'll be right back."

He stepped off the path to meet her. Where she stood, broken parts of walls had been erected, like she was standing in the ruins of her own, old classroom. Had he thought up it, or had she done it?

It probably didn't matter. Harrison stopped a few feet from her.

"You've grown old," McGonagall said.

"I have."

"And worse over time."

"Definitely."

"Perhaps that was always meant to be," she said.

"Probably. I created the Dementors, after all."

"That you did. And they were clever enough to cross dimensions."

"Yeah, they did. They never told me how, just that they did. It's more confusing than my own story how I ended up in another dimension."

"You never asked for clarity?"

"Some things are better left alone," Harrison said. "You know, I still have your heart, professor."

"After all these years?" she asked.

"Weird, right? But it's still there."

"You have changed," she said. "Those two aren't the only ones who have been watching you."

"Watching your enemy? Surely there are more enjoyable things to watch, professor."

"I wanted to see. Those girls are good for you, Harrison. Your daughters."

Harrison had fought against that for some time. Insisted they weren't his children, his daughters. But she put it out there, quite clearly.

"Do I really act like they're mine?" he asked.

"Undoubtedly," McGonagall replied. "Perhaps you never asked to be a father in that sense. But you are. Are they not part of the reason why you're leaving this place?"

Perhaps they were amongst the biggest part of why he was leaving. Sure, he wanted revenge on Hermione and the other rebel leaders. But he also wanted back to his family.

"Took me a long time to form the family I have now," he said. "Never really thought of myself having a family. Isn't that the thing though, once I finally know what I want, life isn't supposed to give me that?"

"Life and fate doesn't really work that way, I think."

"No? Fate seems to love screwing me over."

"That never stopped you, did it?"

He smiled.

"Yeah, that's true," he replied. "Better get going then. Lucy's going to be an absolute nightmare when I get back; she always is when I've done something stupid."

"You're putting her father at risk," McGonagall said. "Anger is easier to show than fear."

"Oh, that I know very well. She takes after me then. I probably should teach her not to commit mass murder."

"You do that, Harrison."

"You're dying to call me Mr Potter, aren't you?"

"I've had time to learn what new name you prefer."

"Thank you. Of all the people I've killed, you're probably one of the few I would have liked not to kill."

"You know why I had to try."

"I know. I was the bad guy. No, I _am_ the bad guy. You kill the bad guy, or you die trying. It's only natural."

With that, he bid her farewell and moved on. McGonagall stayed where she was. The ruins didn't look that bad and the desks were still standing. Once they got moving again, Harrison could hear the chattering of voices. Students. So she was still teaching, even in the afterlife? Perhaps that was her version of peace, and she had just invited him in for a few moments of that.

Harrison was tempted to turn around, just to have a look. But he resisted it, and thus saw the figure the same time as the twins did.

"Someone's there," they said in unison.

They stopped, but Harrison carried on and so they ran to catch up with him. The figure, a person, was standing on the path as if they were just waiting.

"I think it's Luna," George said at last.

"Luna?" Harrison said and squinted. "Yeah, might be her. Oh dear, I did kill her too. And Neville. But not Ginny."

"You didn't kill Ginny?" they asked.

"No, I had a Dementor take her soul," Harrison said. "Spur of the moment kind of thing, and then I kind of… forgot about it."

"So where is her soul?"

"You're not upset? It's your sister."

"We've come to terms with what happened to our family," Fred said. "Bill was the smart one, listening to Fleur and leaving."

"Yeah, also I never had problems with him. Just wanted to make sure he wasn't coming after me."

"So where is Ginny's soul?"

"Where all souls the Dementors consume go," Harrison said.

"And that is?" George said.

"Even I didn't know at first, so I asked them. From what the Dementors described, it could be called hell."

It definitely was Luna waiting on the path. Her pale hair moving gently in the wind, those odd glasses perched on top of her skull. That cork necklace… she looked like when he first met her. He had kind of forgotten that.

She didn't look upset. In fact, she looked more like how she usually appeared, somewhat absent and dreamy. Harrison tried to remember how she looked like when she died, but outside of the anger he couldn't recollect it. Maybe if he dove into his own mind and had a good look around, but he wasn't that bothered by it. He was old, and bound to forget and remember things in a strange manner.

"Oh, there you are," Luna said once they were close enough. "I missed my chance to talk to you in the beginning."

"You wanted to talk to me?" Harrison said.

"Yes," Luna replied. "I'm not going to attack you like Hermione did. I feel it's rather pointless to do so and besides, I'm not angry anymore."

"Okay. Sure, then. What do you wanna talk about?"

"We'll walk ahead," she said and came up to them. "Fred and George can follow, of course. But you two don't need to listen that closely."

"We'll be just behind you," George assured.

Luna took Harrison's hand and dragged him along. The path continued to form before them, leading on and Harrison followed the progress for a while. Luna hummed under her breath, and then said:

"I was angry in the beginning, when I first arrived here."

"I'm sure you were," Harrison said. "I would be fucking pissed off."

She laughed.

"I probably was that too," she admitted. "But anger holds no meaning here. You only hurt yourself in the end."

Some still held onto it. Harrison knew he had. He held onto a lot of negative things. He was getting better at letting go, but in some aspects, he was a really slow learner.

"I didn't understand how you could have changed so much," Luna continued. "Before, when I was alive. I tried to make sense of it. The closest I got was that George's death was a tipping point. Would you have killed us if he hadn't died?"

"… Probably not," he admitted. "I was ready to let it go, those years I was in Azkaban. But after that, I never really let go until now. Carrying a grudge is an easy thing to do."

"It festers."

"I let it."

"It hurts you."

"Pain reminds you that you're alive," Harrison replied.

"You killed a lot of people, and with a lot, I really mean a lot."

"I got into it, I suppose. It was fun, so why stop? It may sound very callous to you, but that's how I felt."

"On the contrary; it sounds very much like you," Luna told him. "As Harry Potter. As the Nightmare Lord. As Harrison. Stubborn, and to the point. Not the least bit delicate."

"Perhaps I've always been rather blunt," Harrison said. "I don't hold much regret over my lifestyle. Perhaps a tiny bit of regret ending up here, but I'll let go of it eventually. Plus I got to meet people I've missed. I could hold them. It almost makes dying worth it."

"But have you really died?"

Had he? If you entered a Veil, you died. But Harrison was a special case. Had he died, or just gotten transported from one plane of existence to another?

"I don't know," he answered honestly. "But I don't intend to stay here. So I'll go with I'm not really dead, I'm just visiting."

"It sounds impossible." Luna looked at him. "But then again, it sounds just like you. Are you going to kill the Luna that helped making the Veil?"

"Yes."

"And the other Hermione?"

"Yes."

"As well as the other rebel leaders?"

"Yes."

"And after that?" she wondered.

"After I've killed them?" Harrison didn't even have to think about that. "I'll go home to see my family. My children. I'll even let them yell at me for worrying them. Life will go on."

"And will you be back here?" Luna asked.

"I mean, not in the near future. Perhaps not even in the distant future. But everything dies. Even immortal people. So one day I'll be back. Don't worry; I won't come knocking on your door. I'll probably hang out in my own afterlife, not bothering anyone."

Luna laughed, and as they watched, stairs began to build next to the path, leading up to a sort of balcony looking over the landscape. She let go of his hand and said:

"That's all I really needed to do. So good look getting back to the world of the living."

"I'll do my best."

"Goodbye, Harrison."

"Goodbye, Luna."

With that, she stepped off the path and walked up the stairs. Harrison could see a woman waiting for her, and for some reason remembered Luna's mother had died when Luna was young. Were they waiting for Luna's father? Was that dimension still existing, his original dimension that was splitting itself apart?

Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn't. Perhaps Luna's father was also dead, was just off looking for some strange creature, while Luna had tea with her mother before joining him. Who knew? Harrison smiled and let the twins catch up.

"We're nearing the end," he said.

"Are you sure?" George said.

"Gotta be. It's only been ten years since I was released from the prison, and ten years isn't very long for me."

The path took them down a hill, and the sky was growing darker. At the horizon, it was black, and as they looked, the ground was also turning black. Everything was in a shade of darkness, and the three of them watched as an archway began to build itself into existence. Once it was done, the Veil was there, fluttering in a wind no one could feel.

The path ended right before it.

"It can't be that easy to just walk out of death," Fred said.

"I mean, it could be for him," George replied, pointing at Harrison.

Harrison though was focusing on the people who had appeared next to the Veil. Of course. He hadn't met them so far, so why shouldn't he be forced to meet them now?

Sirius and Remus flanked James and Lily, and it was _his_ parents, _his_ Sirius and Remus. Not Harry Potter's parents and parents' friends of the dimension Harrison had ended up in. They were probably amongst the corpses that surrounded the path that showed the last ten years of his life.

"Oh shit," Fred said.

"Oh shit indeed," George added. "Harrison?"

"It's fine," he said. "I won't break down and cry because mummy and daddy tells me I've been a bad boy."

"Alright. Let us just… hide behind you, yeah?" George said, and Fred nodded.

"I'm hardly enough for the both of you, and I don't really have any dramatic sleeves that I can use to hide you two, but whatever makes you feel better."

Harrison walked down the path. He didn't know his parents. He barely knew Sirius and Remus in the end. They had cared for him, yes, and at one point he had loved all four of them, but that was in the past. He was fine with them hating his guts, turning out to be worse than their worst enemy, and having the nerve to enjoy it as well.

"Harry."

Lily's voice reminded him more of his Harry Potter's mother, and it was kind of grating.

"Harrison," he replied. "Changed my name."

"What have you done?" James said.

"Are we really going to have this conversation?"

"Answer him, Harry," Sirius said.

"What would be the point?" Harrison said. "You won't like it either way."

"Answer him!" Lily shouted.

"If it makes you feel better. What I did, was becoming the bad man. Rather obvious. So I changed from Harry Potter, to Harrison. Harry Potter died, and I was born from him, or something of the sort. I could go on, but you get the gist of it."

"You killed so many people," Remus said. "Your friends!"

"Yes, I did. I killed them. That's very bad. I don't care. That's also very bad. I don't care about that either, so I'm very, _very_ bad."

He looked at their horrified faces, and smiled.

"I'm not the son you raised," he told Lily and James before turning to Sirius. "Not the boy you met after escaping Azkaban."

Looking at Remus, he added:

"Not the young man you asked to be godfather to your child. Sorry, I screwed that one up; or rather I didn't get a chance to do it because I was thrown in Azkaban immediately after defeating Voldemort. I could've tried after I got out, but honestly, I didn't care about your son by the time I was released."

"How can you live with yourself?" Lily said. "Being like the man you fought so hard to defeat? Being like _Voldemort_?"

"Oh, I can live with myself with no trouble whatsoever. I am who I am, and I did the things I did because I chose to do it. I became the Nightmare Lord, and I am the Nightmare Lord. The one who killed off entire villages. The one who hunted Muggles and magical people. The one people fears, over and over again throughout the generations. The one who is forgotten, and remembered again. The one who reminds people, by striking fear into their very hearts."

He laughed at the looks on their faces.

"The one who puts that kind of look on people," he added. "And now I'm leaving."

"You can't leave the afterlife," Lily said. "You can't step back to the world of the living once falling through a Veil."

"Yeah? Watch me."

He turned to the twins, and he wasn't sure what to say, when George took a breath and said:

"It was great to see you again, mate. But if you don't step through that Veil and defy all laws on magic by coming through to the world of the living, I'll be pissed."

"Seconded," Fred said. "We mean it, we'll be very pissed. And then we'll push you through anyway, because you've got people to return to."

"People to scare," George added.

"People to remind that their nightmare won't leave just because they feel like it."

"Also, tell everyone we said hello."

Harrison grinned, and pulled them close. It would be the last time for a very, very long time he could do it, after all.

"Don't hesitate on calling for us," Fred said.

"Who knows, we might be able to come even without the stone," George continued. "But if we can't, use the stone."

"It hurts you."

"We hardly notice it," Fred said. "Not when we get to see our friend."

"… Alright. I'll do that."

He let them go and backed away. He couldn't hesitate. If he hesitated, Harrison wasn't sure he could go through with it.

"We won't let you!"

James. Oh, the so very dramatic and disgustingly _good_ James Potter and his wife and friends. Fred and George had their wands out, but Harrison didn't want them to have to fight. So he gathered magic and released a great wave of it at his parents and their friends. They were thrown back, screaming where they landed, but it was enough.

"Go!" George shouted.

Harrison looked at them a final time. Looked at the afterlife a final time.

It had been a long road down memory lane. It had been fun, and sad, and a bit annoying. Just like life. He would be sad to leave some people behind in the afterlife, but he couldn't have it all. Harrison just had to wait. Like he told Luna, even immortal people died. He just had to live, until he lived no more, and then he'd be back here.

So with a final smile to the twins, to his friends, he turned and ran through the Veil.

 _To be continued…_

* * *

Oh, we're finally getting near the end! Thank whoever made dramatic movie soundtrack, it always inspires me (now if I just could write everything down that got inspired, that would be great).

Chapter eight: Will the rebel leaders get caught? Will Harrison make it through?

See you later,

Tiro


	8. Chapter 8

**The Nightmare Man's Journey**

 **Summary** : Sequel to The Nightmare Man, set ten years later. Under the rule of the Dark Lord Voldemort, much still remains the same. Yet rebels still exist, and they fight to remove Voldemort's ally, the Nightmare Lord. Will they succeed?

 **Pairing/s** : None.

 **Warnings** : Mentions and descriptions of violence and gore, OOC-characters, dark!Harry, time travel and other such stuff.

It's good if you've read the prequels _The Nightmare Man_ and _Birth of a Nightmare Man_ , or some confusion might occur.

 **Disclaimers** : I don't own Harry Potter, nor do I make any money writing fanfiction.

 _NOTE: Do not re-upload on any other site; I do not give permission to do so._

-o-

What is this, a chapter that's earlier than the others have been lately? It's a miracle!

Enjoy reading, everyone.

-o-

 **Chapter Eight**

Voldemort had used people as bait before, including his own Death Eaters. It had never made him this nervous before. Was it because he was using Harry Potter as bait? Harrison would never have approved, only because he considered Harry his, and anyone who hurt Harry was on the fast track to a violent, bloody death if Harrison had any say in it. Voldemort remembered the one time Harry got kidnapped after all. Well, he hadn't been there to see it, but he heard about it later by Lucius, who had been there before Harry had been retrieved.

Now, was he nervous that Harry would get hurt, or was he nervous that Harrison would somehow find out about this whole bait-thing and come back from beyond the Veil purely to give Voldemort a violent, bloody death? He didn't know at this point.

He didn't know if Harrison would ever come back. Bellatrix was the only one truly believing it still and wasn't that funny? She had hated Harrison when they first met, absolutely loathed him and then all of a sudden they were best buddies, torturing people together and having a laugh. Voldemort didn't understand the way Bellatrix worked, but then again, he didn't really understand how Harrison worked either.

Whatever; the point was, he was nervous as hell. For Harry's sake. That if he was to be taken, and possibly killed, what would happen to the children? What would happen to Elise and Lucian, the only servants awake? Or even Draco and Rabastan, what would happen to them, they who had lost their world already and now were on the brink on losing what they had built up over the last five years?

He shouldn't think about it that way, but he couldn't help himself. Voldemort often looked for the worst possible outcomes before thinking something positive.

Harry wasn't as worried as him, and Harry was the one playing the bait!

And then, over three months after Harrison's disappearance but not even two weeks after Harry had started playing bait, the move was made.

Voldemort was alerted that Hermione Granger was following Harry, who had gone out to Muggle London less than thirty minutes earlier. Voldemort took four Death Eaters with him and hurried to follow them.

By the time he and the Death Eaters arrived, Harry was tailed by not just Granger, but also the two Weasley children, as well as Longbottom and Lovegood. All of the rebel leaders had gathered, for one single man. But perhaps they all wanted to capture their former friend, and demand answers? Or would they kill him in public, for everyone to see, so all the rebels could hear about Harry Potter's very public death? Would it raise moral, or give rebels hope their stupid, little war could go their way? It didn't really matter what they wanted though, because Voldemort wasn't going to let them go through with whatever they wanted to do.

It was still hard to believe how much trouble those five had given Voldemort over the last ten years. Still hard to believe they managed to actually have Harrison disappear through a Veil.

He should have killed them ten years ago, even if they were only teenagers back then. However, this was not the time to think what he could've and should've done; now was the time to finally capture them.

With the five rebel leaders caught, the rebels would be a bit more scattered. They wouldn't have Granger's brains, or Weasley's strategies. They would have to rely on each other, work without their leaders, and Voldemort knew the times they did do that, the rebels were sloppy and easily discovered.

Once the rebel leaders had been dealt with, the chaos within the Ministry could be addressed. The infected wound finally treated. The best cure had been to show up the Nightmare Lord, show them all what he was, but Harrison wasn't there.

Voldemort had to heal that infected wound on his own.

He sent the Death Eaters to other roofs, and spotted Bellatrix walking near Harry, dressed and looking like an older woman.

Granger was approaching Harry at a fast pace, and took out her wand. Voldemort jumped from one roof to another, eyes on them. Behind Lovegood, two Death Eaters crept up, hiding in the shadows.

The two Weasleys took out their wands too, and Longbottom moved back to Lovegood. Voldemort took out his wand and crossed another roof. The buildings ended there and opened up to the Thames. There was no traffic, and barely any Muggles.

Voldemort realized that was exactly what Granger had planned; that girl was no fool, after all. She didn't seem too concerned about Bellatrix, and Bellatrix must have caught on what the rebel leaders had planned since she walked on, while Harry stopped. He turned around and Granger raised her wand.

"Hello, Hermione," he said.

"You're being sloppy," Granger replied, as Voldemort crept down a house wall and snuck closer.

Kill or capture? One of the Death Eaters seemed to wonder the same thing, and Voldemort quickly signalled for capture. They shouldn't engage in duels in the open, especially not where Muggles could see them. Plus, he wanted to kill them within the Ministry, where gossip spread like fire and ensured the whole magical community would know within the day.

"Am I?" Harry asked, hands empty.

"I couldn't believe it first," she said. "But here you are. Just walking around, as if you have any right to it."

"I don't?"

"You betrayed your own parents, and us! Your friends! Your teachers, everyone you ever knew! For what? For a madman?"

"Yes," Harry replied.

"You're not even denying it?" the Weasley boy asked, coming up to Granger.

"What would be the point in that?" Harry wondered.

"You!" The Weasley boy raised his wand. "You betrayed everything you once stood for."

"What people said I stood for," Harry replied. "I was a symbol without wanting to be one, and in the end, I was just a tool for Dumbledore to use. He may have had good intentions for all involved, but me? I could die for all he cared. They would slap up a statue and carry on with their lives."

"He wasn't trying to kill you," Granger said.

"He wasn't trying to give me a chance to live," Harry said. "I was supposed to fight Voldemort, and die in the process. Or die by trying to kill Voldemort, weaken him just enough so Dumbledore could finish him off."

"That's what that lord told you!"

"That's what I felt, Hermione! You looked at me, but didn't see Harry. You saw the weapon that would kill Voldemort. Well, in the Nightmare Lord's eyes I'm not a weapon; I'm just Harry."

"It doesn't matter now," the Weasley girl interrupted, coming up to flank Granger together with her brother. "You're going to die today."

Harry laughed a little.

"Really?" he said.

"You've lived ten years too long already," Granger said.

"Ten years. You've been so careful and methodical for ten years."

"We had to be!" Granger said. "To fight what is right."

"Yeah, spare me the lecture," Harry said. "You said I was being sloppy. You've been trying to kill me for ten years, and all of a sudden I'm getting sloppy? You really should've stopped and wondered why. Isn't that right, Voldemort?"

"Oh yes," Voldemort said. "They really should have."

They all turned around, but Voldemort already had his wand up. A _Stupefy_ took care of the Weasley boy, Ron was his name, right, and Granger wasn't aiming at Voldemort. No, she had turned back to Harry and the tip of her wand burned bright green.

It was the killing spell, Voldemort knew that. She certainly had enough hate and focus to cast it. But before she could get a word out, or even raise the wand to properly aim at Harry Bellatrix fell from above, landing between Harry and Granger.

She pulled her arm back, and in the next moment Granger's head flew backwards, blood gushing out of her broken nose. Granger screamed, staggering backwards, and Bellatrix moved to Weasley, grabbing her by the hair and yanking back, forcing her down. Bellatrix stomped on her hand to make her let go of the wand.

Two Death Eaters held Longbottom and Lovegood, their wands thrown to the ground. Granger steadied herself but Voldemort took a page from Bellatrix's book, why use magic when one could use brute force, and kicked her in the back to make her slam to the ground. Voldemort had ropes appear and bind her tightly, almost cutting off blood-flow to her arms.

Lovegood was growling like a mad dog, and Longbottom was fighting against the Death Eater, getting an arm loose before another Death Eater wrenched the arm back until it broke.

Bellatrix had the Weasley girl in ropes and chains, the girl spitting in her face. Bellatrix grinned before she slammed the girl's head to the ground. Lovegood and Longbottom were knocked out and bound, and Voldemort did the same with Ron. Granger was glaring at them all, the only one awake.

Harry moved up towards them.

"I sealed off the area," he said. "No Muggle should've noticed us."

"Good," Voldemort replied.

"You've become one of them," Granger said. "You suppress us!"

Voldemort supposed, in her eyes they did. It didn't matter what laws he passed, or what he forbid. How the Ministry worked, and how the magical community had started to live normally in their rule; for people like Granger, it would never be good enough.

People like her would die calling him a monster, a tyrant, and Voldemort knew he couldn't change their mind. So he didn't try to. Would Harry try to?

"I have become one of them," Harry said. "And yes, the world may work to their favour now. But before they took the power, it didn't work to their favour. No one will ever be satisfied, Hermione. Except people like Harrison; he'll just be bored."

"He's dead," she snarled. "We killed him."

"And you think yourself so rightful and just for that," Harry said. "But I know quite a few who would be more than happy to rip your organs out through your mouth."

"Oh yeah? Who?"

"Well, for starters, I'm one of them." Harry crouched down to look at her. "So you should really be fucking happy you're in Voldemort's hands now. Because I wouldn't let you die for _days_. Weeks even. I've lived with a nightmare man for ten years; I've picked up a few tricks of his."

"He earned that death!"

"Lucy would be next," Harry continued. "You know, the fifteen-year old girl you orphaned? No matter how much Harrison denies it, he was her dad. And you took her dad from her."

"He turns everyone into monsters!"

Granger wouldn't quit. She would die proud of that death she caused, no matter what consequences it had. Harry stared down at her.

"It's not point in arguing," he said at last. "So I won't. You'll never feel guilty what you've done to us. But then again, I won't feel guilty no matter what way you die. So we're even."

With that, he rose up and ignored her yelling.

"Their wands," he said. "Do you need them?"

"No," Voldemort said. "Do you want them?"

"I don't," Harry replied. "But there's always space in Harrison's room for wands."

Voldemort nodded, and retrieved all five of them before handing them over.

"I'll be taking them to the Ministry," he said. "A public death is always one that spreads to every corner of the magical community. What will you do?"

"I'm going home," he replied. "Elise said… she said she wanted to see them die. So I'll send her to the Ministry once I'm back."

"I'll have Bellatrix guard her," Voldemort said. "I'll come back with her once it's done."

Harry nodded. Granger was still shouting at him, telling him about the Veil and how she had planned for the Nightmare Lord to fall through. The triumph when it succeeded. The sheer happiness when the chaos was growing and the Nightmare Lord didn't return. She said she had won.

Voldemort didn't expect it, but then again, neither did Granger. Harry turned to her, smiled pleasantly, and stomped down on her face, cutting off her voice as she lost consciousness. The Death Eaters stared at him. Harry breathed in, released it, and said:

"It seems Harrison's love for anger has rubbed off on me a bit. Meaning, be violent if you're angry."

"I'd say you're relatively tame compared to him," Voldemort replied. "Go home, Harry. Look after the children."

"Give them hell," Harry said, looking at the rebel leaders. "Don't hold back."

"I assure you, I won't."

-o-

Harry returned to the manor, and closed the doors quietly behind him. The hall was silent. The manor was usually quiet, but never this quiet. There was always someone walking around, even at night. A servant who couldn't sleep, or Harrison that couldn't sleep, or an Inferi that managed to get inside and then felt like walking around…

Now there was this stillness to the place he had had time to get used to, a whole three months even, but still wasn't used to. He'd lived with steps and distant voices for ten years. Lived with waking up in the middle of the night to hear Harrison talk to himself, or hum, or even sing. His singing had never been any good, which was probably why he did it at night.

He'd loved to hear that singing. Harry shook his head. They had to… to get used to this. At this point, he couldn't allow himself to hope. They had to get used to Harrison being gone, and remaining gone.

That meant Elise and Lucian would fall asleep too. They would become like the others. Would they be like that forever? Would they just be in a coma? Would Harry had to grow old watching them just… sleep?

"Harry?"

He looked up. Elise was at the foot of the stairs.

"We got them," he said. "I told Voldemort you wanted to be there."

"Where are they?"

"The Ministry. Bellatrix will be there with you."

Elise came closer. Her steps were slow and measured. The alertness in her eyes was fading. It wouldn't be long for her now.

"Please don't use any unnecessary energy," he still couldn't help but say. "Let Bellatrix guard you."

Elise looked at him. Then she took out her wand and placed it on a table.

"I'll use it if I bring it with me," she said. "I'm not that good at wandless magic, so if I don't have a wand… I'll be more careful."

Harry nodded.

"I'll go then," Elise said. "Lucian is with… he's with Angel."

"Alright. I'll look after him."

"I know you will."

Harry walked her to the fireplace. With special permission, Harrison's fireplace was connected to the one in Lucius' office. With any luck, someone would be there to send word to Lucius.

"I'll be back when they're dead," Elise said.

"Hopefully it'll take a while for them to die," Harry said, and she actually smiled.

But once she had gone through, Harry braced himself against the fireplace. He had to get his lesson plans ready for the new term at Hogwarts; it wasn't long now.

Lucy had done all her homework, but had yet to go and get her new school supplies. Harrison usually went with her. Harry supposed now he had to go with her.

It wasn't that he didn't want to go, it was just… it was a thing. Harrison's and Lucy's thing. They went on their own. They were gone an entire day and ended up with more than they needed, but Lucy would be laughing and skipping and giving Angel a present because they always got her a present and _oh god, I can't do this. I need him here._

Harry figured Lucian and Angel could wait a few minutes. Just a few minutes…

He leaned his head against the cool stone of the hearth, and cried.

-o-

Voldemort took the chance to sift through the rebel leaders minds while they were unconscious. Their Occlumency was rather good, but he got through them now that they weren't awake to actively fight against him. At one point, early on, Elise arrived in Lucius' office. He saw in the corner of his eye how Bellatrix helped her to sit down, and then tuned them out.

He took note of information and locations, and also rebel members. He said the names aloud and Lucius wrote them down. Quite a few were found to be working in the Ministry. Lucius ordered their arrest; they would be dealt with after the rebel leaders' deaths.

Lucius also wrote down the locations, and basically anything Voldemort found out. At long last, he pulled away from Ron Weasley's mind and sat down.

"Elise," he said. "How are you doing?"

Compared to her normal self, she looked awful. It was still odd to see her eyes without the silvery sheen.

"I've been better," she said. "Won't get better, if things continue like this. But at least I'll get to see them die."

She looked at the rebel leaders.

"I never considered them becoming the biggest threat when I let them live ten years ago," Voldemort confessed. "A rather large oversight on my part. A lot of things could've been prevented if I had just killed them."

"If not them, it would've been someone else," Elise said. "It always is that. And once they're dead, someone will try to take over."

"We have a lot of names now," Lucius said. "So hopefully we'll be able to send a powerful enough of a message to deter them for some time."

"By killing those you know about?" Elise said. "That sounds like something master would do."

"And that's what we will do," Voldemort said as he rose up. "Bella, you stay with Elise as we walk down. Elise, I can't imagine how hard it is to be limited so much, but please conserve your energy."

"… I left my wand at home," Elise said. "That'll stop me from being reckless at least."

So she knew she would've done something reckless had she brought it?

"Foresight. Good thinking."

"Master would've never thought of that. He rarely planned anything ahead. Whatever happened, happened."

"Sounds like Harrison." Voldemort motioned to the Aurors. "Keep their chains and ropes tight. I don't want them to even think about escaping."

They nodded and roused the rebel leaders, dragging them up on their feet. They were shuffled out and pushed and pulled down the corridors, Voldemort and the rest following.

How should they die? Voldemort caressed his wand as they walked. The killing spell was quick, and much too kind. The Cruciatus curse, maybe? Or simply gut them? It had to be a spectacle, enough to scare and warn at the same time. There were enough people in the Ministry that would be screaming for the rebel leaders' deaths that they would not be disgusted by a bloody scene.

People were already gathering down at the atrium, forming a mass of people. The rebel leaders were strung up on a wall, and the voices pulsated throughout the room, echoed against the high roof, and people argued, cheered, called on others.

Several called on Voldemort. They praised his efforts. They called for death, unified. All of a sudden, the crack within the Ministry didn't exist. It would come back soon enough. The longer they weren't allowed to see Harrison, the more people would believe him a lie.

Would he eventually be put behind people? Become a thing you moved on from? Voldemort knew Harrison had been forgotten before. It would be just like those times, only now he wouldn't come back and remind people their nightmare was still there.

"Let's deal with that tomorrow," he murmured.

He had five rebel leaders to execute today.

-o-

Only…

That didn't quite happen.

-o-

There were plenty of rooms within the Ministry that few had entrance to. There were some rooms that people didn't even want to enter.

The room of Death was one such room. Only those who studied death and its effects, and in particular the Veil within that room, wanted to be there.

But not this day. The room was empty of people, most of them gathered in the atrium to watch the death of the five rebel leaders, finally caught after ten years. Most of them thought the whole thing as a bit of entertainment.

So the Veil stood alone. No one really knew much about the Veils. No one really knew how they worked, and how they came into existence. The fact that the rebels managed to create one, albeit temporary, was impossible. Or was it impossible? People couldn't even say that. It should have been impossible, logically, but it happened anyway.

It fluttered gently with a wind no one could feel. Perhaps it was the wind from the afterlife, someone had suggested once. Who knew, really?

Then, there was a sound. A trembling of stones, the archway moving. Just a little bit. The Veil fluttered harder, even blew up and out. Another tremble came through, this time moving down the dais and across the floor.

A third tremble brought it to the walls, causing a rumbling sound. Dust from the ceiling rained down. A few loose stones fell down.

The room began to shake. The rumbling came again, and stayed, increasing in volume. A wind howled, and from beyond the Veil came a shriek.

Voices shouted. Screamed. Hundreds of them. No, thousands. The walls shook, and the loose stone pieces on the floor danced with the trembling.

A hand grabbed onto the archway, coming from nowhere. Well, not nowhere to be precise. It came from beyond the Veil.

It came from the afterlife, which was impossible.

But it happened anyway.

The fingertips were black, the fingernails an ashen grey. Another hand joined it, and the screams grew louder, ear-shattering.

From the room, the trembles and shudders moved. The screams moved. Through corridors and other rooms, the walls shook and the floor trembled. The voices screamed, echoing down corridors and making people's skin crawl.

The few that hadn't moved to the atrium that is. Those who hadn't cared to see the deaths. Those who kept on working. Perhaps they regretted it now, as they clutched onto their desks in fear. Those who had been walking fell against the walls, unable to hold themselves up due to the trembling of the floors. They stared around them, some yelling about attacks and intruders. What else could make the Ministry tremble so?

In the room of Death, a body was coming through the Veil. Black, long hair, tattered robes that smelt of rotten-sweet, decaying death, and ashen earth. Like he came from a grave. His skin was ashen, eyes sunken in, black veins just below the skin. Black pools instead of the normal, bright green.

The Nightmare Lord's teeth were bared, like he was holding back a scream. He was fighting. The Veil didn't want to let him through. It was an unnatural thing to occur, after all. No one who fell through a Veil ever came out; that was about the only thing everyone agreed upon. No one ever came back.

Unfortunately for the Veil, the Nightmare Lord cared little for what was supposed to happen, and what was considered unthinkable and impossible. Unfortunately for Hermione Granger and her plans, the Nightmare Lord loved to defy everything that was logical and sane.

He got a foot out, the bottom of his robes splattered with old blood. His boots had burned away sometime between him entering the Veil in the afterlife, and coming out in the world of the living. He heaved his upper body out, and the floor below his foot cracked. The Veil's shriek climbed higher up. The Nightmare Lord snarled.

Finally the Veil gave up, and let go of him. It caused him to tumble over, falling to the dais and then rolling over the edge. He fell down the stairs and came to a rest below them. All sounds died out, and the only thing heard after that was his harsh breathing. It sounded like a Dementor.

Ashen lips cracked into a wide smile, and he laughed. Then he stopped, entire body jerking upwards until he was sitting on the floor, his face becoming that of blank stone. But it only lasted for moments before he laughed again, crazier than the first one.

He stopped and slapped his own face. He started shaking, his facial expression changing as if he couldn't decide on a personality. As if he didn't quite know what personality he was supposed to have.

No one knew what would happen to a normal person who walked through a Veil, let alone a man that had lived for almost two thousand years.

The Nightmare Lord fought to stand up, fell over and roared, magic blasting out of him with enough force to damage an entire wall. He got up again, remained standing and cracked his neck.

He stood still, mouth working, no sound coming out. Something black and sticky came out of, trickling down his chin, and he spat on the floor. The head moved from side to side, almost rolling around on the neck. He muttered to himself, words harsh and almost nonsense. Sometimes he would rip at his hair, burst out in uncontrollable laughter, and then punch himself in the face.

Those who had only known him for the last ten years would say he was acting… very odd, for the Nightmare Lord. Those who had known him for longer would disagree. He had acted like that before. Back when his title was his name, and kindness was not something he necessarily believed he had in him.

In short, the Nightmare Lord that had just come back from the dead was not quite the one that had entered the afterlife over three months earlier.

He stilled at last, looking up at the Veil.

"Where am I?" he said, voice raspy. "No, I know where I am. Or do I?"

He spun around on the heel of his foot, looking at the walls, the floor and the roof.

"It's a Veil," he said to no one. "And I'm Harrison. No, I'm not. Yes… no. _No_. Yes?"

He turned to the Veil.

"Or am I lord?" he asked. "Am I both? None of it?"

No one answered.

"Rude," he told the room in general. "What about rebels?"

He looked up at the roof again, cocking his head like he was listening to something. He was. His magic was at the edge of his fingertips, filled him to the brim and above, and so he listened to the chatter of the floors above. Those who discussed the trembling. Those who were running to tell the minister about it. Others who spoke of the rebels, that the rebels were the cause of the trembling.

 _The rebel leaders were captured; their followers have come to save them!_

 _Don't be an idiot! Lord Voldemort caught them; there is no way they can be saved!_

 _Did you hear? He captured them for their role in the disappearance of this Nightmare Lord bloke._

 _He ain't real, Mary, and everyone knows that._

"I'm not real?" he asked, and when no answer came he realized he was listening to a conversation that was occurring five floors above him. "But I am real. Aren't I?"

He looked at the Veil.

"I am real," he repeated. "I exist. I came back from the world of the dead, and I. Am. Real."

 _But Lord Voldemort has always assured us the Nightmare Lord was real, and the rebels seemed frightened enough to try and vanquish him forever._

"Rebels," he said. "Children. Silly, little children. Hermione, yes. Who?"

He tilted his head, muttering about the rebels, knowing he knew their names but didn't, at the moment, quite remember how he knew their names. Then a sentence above had him straighten up:

 _Those rebel leaders will die today, Lord Voldemort will most certainly kill them_.

"Oh no, we can't have that," the Nightmare Lord whispered, a demented smile on his face. " _I_ am killing them."

With that, he threw out his arm to the side. An entire wall of the room was swept aside like nothing, bricks and dust flying, the other walls groaning as they had to carry more of the weight of the floors above. Magic began to leak out from him. He recognized bits and pieces he had given away long ago, and more recent.

"Why do I have them?" he wondered. "No matter; I'll just give it back."

The Nightmare Lord flicked his hand and the magic rose with a roar to return to his servants, and to his home. Where the pieces had belonged for a long time.

He walked through the hole in the wall, and someone was running towards him. The man screamed:

"Intruder! Intruder, kill him now, kill the intruder!"

The Nightmare Lord realized the man meant him. _Rude_. He stopped and took a deep, rattling breath before howling. It travelled like a wave, his voice. Dust flew off the walls and the floor, and the man's eardrums shattered. He fell to the floor with a scream, blood trickling out of his ears. The Nightmare Lord began to walk, anger welling up inside of him. Anger for what? Anger for anger's own sake, perhaps.

As he walked, barefoot, he left a trail of black, slimy footprints on the floor. The black veins began to pulsate beneath the skin, as he let the anger fill him up. It was a pointless anger, a passing one, but he took enjoyment in it nonetheless.

He passed the man whimpering on the floor, and followed the sounds of people from the floors above, leading him to the atrium. Normally, he would've known the way. But right now, memories came to him in jerky motions, and he couldn't remember them in the right order. So he didn't remember much of the Ministry or its halls; the atrium was about the only thing that he knew existed. He also followed the sounds, stretched his magic out so he could hear much further than humanly possible.

People shouted and screamed and talked and laughed and gossiped. There were a lot of voices in the atrium, but it was muted. More like whispers. He was several floors below it.

He stopped. The Nightmare Lord did things alone. Or had done. Did he still do things alone? Did he enter dramatically, or with no drama at all?

"I don't remember," he said to the walls. "My children!"

He snapped his fingers.

"They miss me, they must miss me. Right?"

With thoughts of Dementors came thoughts of Inferi, and the Nightmare Lord began to smile, showing off sharp teeth and black gums.

"Oh… _oh_. I know now. I know how to kill them. The ones that pushed me through. Those silly, little children."

He snapped his fingers once more, and with it an echo of magic followed. A summon.

"Come, my children," he said and began walking again. "Come, my Inferi. I have the most wonderfulplan. I don't think I've done something similar before. Or have I? Oh well… either way, it'll be _fun_."

His laughter bounced off the walls, getting louder and louder as he couldn't stop. The magic was crackling, swirling around him and the walls and floor cracked and groaned around him. The few that saw him decided it was best that they hid from his sight. For even if they didn't recognize him, their self-preservation was going in overdrive at the sight of him.

The Nightmare Lord didn't care for them. He had specific targets to kill, and he wanted it done _now_.

 _To be continued_ …

* * *

Cliffhanger! I shall do my best to not let you wait for long for the next chapter.

Chapter nine: The Nightmare Lord is back. What is everyone's reaction? And what will he do with the rebel leaders?

See you later,

Tiro


	9. Chapter 9

**The Nightmare Man's Journey**

 **Summary** : Sequel to The Nightmare Man, set ten years later. Under the rule of the Dark Lord Voldemort, much still remains the same. Yet rebels still exist, and they fight to remove Voldemort's ally, the Nightmare Lord. Will they succeed?

 **Pairing/s** : None.

 **Warnings** : Mentions and descriptions of violence and gore, OOC-characters, dark!Harry, time travel and other such stuff.

It's good if you've read the prequels _The Nightmare Man_ and _Birth of a Nightmare Man_ , or some confusion might occur.

 **Disclaimers** : I don't own Harry Potter, nor do I make any money writing fanfiction.

 _NOTE: Do not re-upload on any other site; I do not give permission to do so._

-o-

I apologize for the cliffhanger in the previous chapter (I do love my cliffhangers). Here, enjoy Harrison's antics at the Ministry!

-o-

 **Chapter Nine**

Harry had given himself fifteen minutes to complete his minor breakdown, before he used magic to hide the evidence and went in search of Lucian and Angel. He found them in an upstairs sitting room, Lucian reading a book for her.

Angel was no longer a child that needed to be read to, she read perfectly fine on her own but Harrison had never stopped reading aloud for her. Harry had often wondered if it was because Harrison genuinely didn't remember when one normally would stop reading aloud for children, or if he remembered and just didn't care.

Whatever the reason was, Lucian was reading for her now and Harry watched them from the doorway, not wanting to interrupt.

"You're back."

Lucy stood in the hall, voice quiet, with a book in her arms.

"I'm back," Harry acknowledged. "What have you got there?"

"It's from Harrison's room," she said. "Don't worry; it was in the 'little to no gore' bookshelf."

"Good. You wanna join them?"

He nodded into the room, and Lucy shrugged. But she went inside a moment later, and Harry followed. Lucian glanced up for a moment, and then turned back to the book. Angel waved at Harry before snuggling deeper into Lucian's chest. To others, normal people, she was a too old for that; Harry remembered that himself, his parents saying he was too big to sit in their laps. But Harrison didn't care, never had, and no one else in the manor cared as well.

Let children be children for as long as possible, was something they said instead. Harrison and the servants had been about the only ones who treated Harry like a child back when he first joined them. Everyone else had pretty much told him he was an adult already, he shouldn't be coddled anymore.

Lucy sat down near Lucian and Angel with the book in her lap, but soon enough she leaned forward and listened to Lucian's story instead. Harry prepared a drink. He didn't drink often, but he felt he earned one today. Just a little one. Not enough to get drunk or anything, although he was pretty sure Draco and Rabastan would be there to help him with Lucy and Angel if he did get drunk.

He had just begun to relax, Lucian reading a second story because Lucy had handed over the book and said she wanted to hear his version on a chapter, when the manor shook. They all stopped and looked up.

Was it an attack? Harry put away the glass and rose up, wand out. The manor shook again, a fine trembling running through the floor. Lucian put the book to the side and helped Angel up from his lap, but as he stood up he suddenly froze. He toppled to the floor.

"Lucy, take Angel and go to the downstairs living room now!"

Lucy grabbed Angel's hand and ran. Harry pulled Lucian up. He heard Draco and Rabastan yelling from somewhere in the manor. His focus was on the children. He hoped he hadn't sent them downstairs only to fall into someone's hand.

But it was only the living room fireplace that was connected to the Floo; the only place he could send them through quickly, and then destroy the fireplace to prevent someone following them. They would be safe in Lucius' office, right?

He dragged Lucian with him downstairs, where Lucy had stopped because of course she had stopped to wait for him. The manor was still trembling, the glass in the windows rattling. Somewhere, the kitchen probably, porcelain smashed down onto the ground.

Just when he got down to where Lucy and Angel were waiting, Lucian gasped and wrenched himself free. He took a few stumbling steps, and before their eyes his hair changed back to the pale colour that they'd gotten so used to seeing on him. They stared, and achingly familiar marks on Lucian's skin came back, snaking around his wrists and neck.

Lucian looked at them and a silvery sheen came over his eyes.

A humming began to fill the entire manor. Harry pulled Lucy and Angel close. Magic was moving, pushing into the walls. The front doors flew open, slammed against the walls and Harry could see the wards light up. The old wards; Harrison's wards.

Lucian was smiling, magic rising from his skin.

"They're waking up!" Draco was yelling.

An orb of magic formed outside, within the wards but separate from them. Dementors came out of the rooms, shrieking, and moved to the orb. Harry could see Inferi walk towards it. The Inferi leader raised her spear, and once everyone had gathered she let it touch the orb. Inferi and Dementors were yanked forward, as if the orb was a Portkey, and they were gone.

"What's happening?" Lucy whispered. "They just… you saw that, Harry? Right?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I did… what…"

Angel laughed all of a sudden. She freed herself from Harry's arms and clapped her hands in delight, jumping up and down.

"It's the right humming!" she told them.

"What?" they both said.

"The humming in the walls, it's Uncle Harrison's humming!"

Harrison's humming. His magic. Angel did always know when Harrison performed magic nearby, because she could hear the sound of it.

Harry heard steps, more than two people, and slowly turned around. Fred and George ran to catch a happily shrieking Angel, and Severus shook his head at them.

Ywgraine bemoaned about sleeping for so long, and Joanne opened her arms, Lucy running into them. More arrived. They were awake. They were _all_ awake, and their eyes shone silver. Harrison's claim on them.

"Master's magic is back," Lucian said.

It was back? Just when he… no, Harry hadn't started to accept it. He had just started to think he would slowly get used to it, missing someone that much. But if the magic was back, did that mean…

Was Harrison back?

-o-

The moment that the atrium floor began to shake, Voldemort had the Death Eaters spread out in case it was the rebels attacking, somehow having been alerted to their leaders' capture so quickly. But in less than a minute, it receded and nothing else happened.

Elise was barely standing, Bellatrix holding her up by the waist, and while Voldemort wanted to kill the rebel leaders so Elise could be escorted home, Morton immediately began to pester Voldemort and Lucius both about the trembling and what should be done. He nagged on the Death Eaters, and so many stood behind that moronic man, smiling stupidly as if Morton was the Minister.

This wouldn't do. Voldemort was about to ask Lucius if he could please just fire Morton now, or else Voldemort would really end up killing him, when Elise stiffened. She staggered out of Bellatrix's grip, and grasped at her throat.

Within a few steps, she was on her knees, gagging. It was like she couldn't get any air. Bellatrix fell to her knees next to Elise, while Morton's people, for what else were they at this point, laughed. Morton himself pointed at her and said:

"Look at her! What kind of supposed ancient person is she? No, it's all lies, clear as day! Here we have the proof!"

Bellatrix looked ready to commit murder, the only thing stopping her was the fact she was holding Elise up.

"She can't breathe!" Bellatrix said to Voldemort.

For a few moments, Voldemort feared Harrison's first servant, his oldest servant, would finally collapse. It felt like if Elise collapsed and fell into a deep sleep as well, something would be over. Something Voldemort had had for ten years and didn't want to give up on.

But then, Elise gasped and put both hands on the floor. She drew in deep, gulping breaths. Voldemort relaxed a bit. Not now, not today. He couldn't let her stay and get harmed though.

"Bella, get her out of here," he said, thinking he could always show her the memory of him killing the rebel leaders.

It wouldn't be the same, but it just had to be good enough.

Bellatrix pulled at Elise's arm, getting her up, and Elise looked briefly up at the people behind Morton. Mildred, as Lucius had informed Voldemort was the name of the woman who fancied herself Morton's secretary, looked at Elise and said:

"Hang on, why has she got those?"

"Got what?" Bellatrix growled, wand out.

"Those… those silvery eyes?"

Silvery eyes. _Silvery eyes_. The sign of Harrison's magic in each of his servants. Voldemort turned to look at Elise.

She looked up and her eyes shone silver. Magic raced beneath her skin, making her entire body glow and she was shaking. But her smile was as wide and as crazy as her master's, and she laughed. Oh, how she laughed as she looked at her hands and magic spilled out.

She swept her arms to the side, towards Morton's group and magic roared. They were thrown back, away from her, and Elise cocked her head to look at them. At the sight of them sprawled on the ground, she laughed again, more of a delighted giggle, hiding her mouth behind her hand.

They got up, shouting angrily to her. The rebel leaders were almost forgotten in the chaos, hanging like decoration on the wall. Everyone was turning to the new chaos, to the ruckus Morton's group was causing.

"I demand that you take her away, Minister!" Morton said, pointing at Elise even as she looked at her hands, smiling. "She attacked us!"

"Elise?" Voldemort said. "Your magic…"

"Master…" Elise whispered, cradling her hands to her chest. "Master's magic… oh, it's so _warm_."

Harrison's magic was back? Voldemort didn't have time to question her, because someone started screaming and then Morton was there again:

"What are those creatures? Get them out of here!"

"Inferi!" someone else shouted. "It's Inferi, why are they here?"

People moved aside and an Inferius woman stepped forward. Voldemort saw the spear first, and his heart began to beat faster. Harrison's Inferi leader walked towards Elise, growling at people, pushing the spear against others and snapping her teeth when they got too close. Everyone scuttled away at the sight of her rotting, but still sharp teeth, and more Inferi came. They walked so the middle of the atrium was cleared, the path to the rebel leaders easy to walk now that no people stood in the way.

Said rebel leaders were fighting against their restraints, but Voldemort tightened them with a sweep of his wand.

"Dementors too, why are they here?" someone called out.

"Get those out!" Morton hollered.

"Move away," Lucius called out. "Give them room, move out of the way!"

The Dementors glided across the atrium, shrieking their language at each other, at Elise, and then back at someone. They pawed their hands at Elise's shoulders, as if… excited.

Elise herself went down on her knees.

"What's wrong with her?" Morton said. "Minister, I must insist, this chaos is simply not acceptable!"

"Morton," Lucius began. "Just shut up."

"Minister!" Mildred said. "This is some sort of plot, isn't it?"

"Minister," Morton continued, ignoring Lucius' words. "This chaos, what is the meaning of this?"

"Yeah!" others agreed.

People were shouting all over the atrium. Questions and accusations. The crack within the Ministry widened in an instant. People pointed at each other, and seemed near to break out in fighting. Elise, Voldemort thought, would have joined in to make them all shut up but she wasn't moving.

Morton took out his wand, and immediately others followed. Voldemort couldn't believe this was happening. Just how had Morton survived this far? As the man raised the wand towards Elise, Voldemort had enough.

That's when the wave came. They all felt it. Magic swept over them. Some began choking immediately. Others fell to the floor. A few, like Elise, basked in it. She threw her head back and trembled, lifting her hands as if it would let her touch the magic. Morton and his group weren't able to attack her. Morton barely had a grasp on his wand, face pale and sweating.

Then Elise looked at the end of the atrium, where the Inferi and Dementors had come from, and breathed out:

"Master…"

Voldemort turned around because there was only one person Elise would ever call master. Only one she would ever kneel to, now that he thought about it.

Harrison looked ill, black veins resting just beneath the skin. Blackness inside his mouth, ashen lips pulled back to reveal sharp teeth. His eyes were deep pools of black, staring at the rebels. Something black had dripped out of his mouth, reminding Voldemort of the rot he had once seen on newborn Dementors.

He began to walk closer, bare feet silent against the floor, the robes swishing against smooth stone. Said robes were in tatters, perhaps even the same ones he had worn when he fell through the Veil, and once he was near enough Voldemort could smell the sweet decay and dry earth. The smell of death clung to Harrison.

It felt like looking at a stranger, if Voldemort was to be honest. Because this Harrison was one Voldemort had never seen before. He had seen Harrison angry, both loud and quiet, and this was neither. This wasn't even anger or rage.

It was more like… old. This Harrison felt old in a way Voldemort rarely sensed with the whimsical, weird Harrison he had known over the last ten years.

Everyone was silent now, as they stared at the Nightmare Lord. Not even the rebels were struggling. Once he was close enough to Elise did she move, but only to take his hand in hers. He stopped. He didn't pull his hand back, but he also didn't try to reassure her, like Voldemort had seen him do several times over the years. She rested her forehead against the top of his hand, lips trembling. Voldemort saw tears trickle down her cheeks.

"Master," she said.

"Quiet."

Harrison wasn't loud. It was near silent, a hissing quality to his voice, but it seemed to be something Elise recognized because she immediately closed her mouth, to the point of biting them bloody to keep her silence.

Morton pushed past a few Inferi, broke the line, and walked right up to Harrison. He pushed Elise aside and Harrison's hand slipped out her grip.

"Move!" he snarled at her, and she readjusted her stance to kneel next to Harrison instead of in front of him.

Morton looked ready to shoo her away further, but then moved his attention to Harrison:

"You! This is just great, Lord Voldemort has worked tirelessly to capture the rebel leaders, and now when he has done all of this hard work you just saunter in to take all the attention?"

Morton, Voldemort realized, was more than just an ordinary moron. He was one of a kind, kind of moron. There was no helping him; he was born an idiot, grew up an idiot and would die an idiot.

Harrison's eyes moved from the rebels to Morton, and Morton went off on one of his tangents, his voice loud in the quiet atrium. Harrison's eyes followed Morton's waving arm, back and forth, as Morton ranted on and on about Harrison's ungratefulness to the glory that was Lord Voldemort. Voldemort felt embarrassed to be praised by an idiotic being like Morton.

When Morton seemed to realize Harrison was more interested in his arm than what he was actually saying, his face reddened and he puffed up his chest.

"Are you even listening to me?" he demanded.

"… Who are you?"

It wasn't the same as the hissing command he had given Elise. But it was calm, and soft, and yet it made Elise slide backwards, away from Harrison, wincing all the way. So it was a bad thing when Harrison sounded _that_ calm?

"How dare you!" Morton said instead of answering Harrison's question, as if it was Harrison's job to remember everyone who worked at the Ministry.

It was a miracle Harrison even remembered the way to the Ministry's office. The Nightmare Lord simply couldn't be arsed to care about politics.

Harrison looked at him. Not just the waving arm, but at Morton. Voldemort wondered what Morton appeared like in Harrison's eyes. A man? Something less of a man? A mere insect? An annoyance?

And what did Morton see in Harrison's eyes? Did he see the age? Did he see the murderer, the feared Nightmare Lord that had haunted so many people over the years? Or was he simply too stupid to realize who he was standing in front of?

"Are you the supposed Nightmare Lord?" Morton finally said.

Yes, Voldemort thought, he was simply too stupid. He mentally handed Morton over to Harrison's mercy, and then settled in to watch what Harrison would do.

"Yeah!" someone yelled from Morton's group. "Are you him?"

Others raised the same question, others demanded answers, and some simply pointed at Harrison, whispering furiously between each other.

"Yes, I believe I am him," Harrison replied to Morton, still calm and quiet.

"Oh, good," Morton said. "I can hardly believe it, though. Look at the state of you! It's like you don't even care about Lord Voldemort's reputation!"

Harrison most likely didn't give a shit about that either, but Voldemort didn't take it to heart. He knew Harrison liked him.

Hearing about Voldemort, Harrison tilted his head. He appeared to be confused. Elise cleared her throat, quietly, and Harrison turned to look at her.

"Didn't I tell you to be quiet?" he wondered. "Or do you want your tongue taken?"

Elise shook her head quickly, but then pointed at Voldemort. Harrison finally looked at him.

"Am I supposed to recognize him?" Harrison asked.

Elise drew Voldemort's name in magic, and Harrison stared at it.

"Oh. _Oh_ , that Voldemort. Hello, Voldemort. Didn't notice you there for a moment."

His voice was odd. Like he only said those words with the help of muscle memory, not an actual memory of ever knowing Voldemort. Voldemort kept his silence, as he felt drawing this Nightmare Lord's attention was not the best thing.

"How dare you!" Morton screeched, and Harrison's attention was turned back to the man. "The disrespect! No wonder no one believes your lies, no ancient lord would be this disrespectful!"

"What, you've met many ancient lords then?"

It was a reply present Harrison would make, but Voldemort realized most of the Harrison he was seeing now was from a long time ago. A different Harrison. No, a different Nightmare Lord; one that didn't have a name. One that didn't recognize Harrison as his own name. For the first time, Voldemort was seeing the lord. Just the lord.

"Don't you get cheeky with me; I know you're not a lord at all! You're just pretend! I've read about the Nightmare Lord, you know."

"Have you now?" Harrison said, as if he was interested in listening to Morton.

"Yes, I have. He tore down entire villages; he killed thousands of people throughout his reign! And you? You haven't done squat in ten years!"

"I think I was trying to be polite," Harrison said slowly.

So he was remembering the last ten years? Or was it all messed up in his head at the moment? New and old Nightmare Lord mixing, both of them at once?

"Oh, were you now?" Morton said, as others laughed.

"Yes, I was," Harrison said in all seriousness. "Should I stop?"

"Oh, please do try that. Maybe you can live up to a sliver of what history's Nightmare Lord has done!"

"Alright," Harrison said and tore off Morton's head with a wet, tearing sound.

The spine gave way with a large crack, and blood sprayed into Harrison's face and the front of his robes. Morton's body fell to the atrium floor, leaving the head in Harrison's hand. He looked at it, and then frowned when no sounds came.

"He stopped talking," Harrison said.

Voldemort's eyes widened a fraction. He hadn't even realized he just killed Morton?

"Elise, why did he stop talking?" Harrison asked, looking at her in genuine confusion.

She was silent.

"You can talk," he added. "I won't take your tongue."

"Thank you, master."

"Yes, I'm quite generous. Answer me."

"You tore off his head, master."

"Yes?"

"Most people can't survive that, master."

"And?"

"… You just killed him."

"Oh, is that what I did?" Harrison took the head in both hands and looked at it. "Was he any important?"

"No," Elise replied.

"Then I suppose his death doesn't matter much," Harrison said and threw the head aside.

"Minister, he just killed Morton! Minister, have him arrested!"

Mildred rushed forward, distraught. Others followed her, pushed past Inferi and Dementors, screaming about justice, about arrests and how dare an ordinary person kill a Ministry worker and honestly? Voldemort couldn't give less of a shit towards any of them.

"Arrest this fake lord!" Mildred demanded, and grabbed Harrison's arm.

The next moment, his arm went through her chest, and he pulled out her heart. Blood splattered to the floor, and Harrison looked from the frantically pumping heart to Mildred. He kept eye contact with her as he crushed her heart in his hand.

She fell, blood coming out of her nose and mouth. The body twitched once before stilling.

"Was she any important then?" he asked Elise.

"No," she replied.

"Is this place full of unimportant people?" he wondered.

"No," she said. "But a few."

"Oh, so I can kill some more?"

"Minister, he just killed two people!" someone from Morton's group yelled.

"Arrest him!"

"Attack him!"

" _Kill_ him! Justice for Morton and Mildred!"

Harrison looked around at the screaming group, and then snapped his fingers. Magic moved, and a crack appeared in the atrium floor, quickly spreading out from beneath his feet. A rumble went through the room, and dust came tumbling down from the roof. The ground trembled, as if the earth readied itself to follow Harrison's unspoken command.

"The man said I wasn't the Nightmare Lord," Harrison said in the wake of the silence his magic provided. "But I am real. I'm so real it hurts."

He smiled for the first time, a wide, demented smile and a laughter bubbled out of him. It was razor sharp, and filled even Voldemort with dread. Elise curled up, almost away from him and how bad was this Harrison that even his most devoted servant cowered in fear?

"It keeps happening," he said, voice higher. "All the time! You always forget. It's so tragic it becomes funny!"

He looked at them, spread out his hands, and then dragged his hands over his face, smile gone and instead eyes wide as he stared people down.

"It's like the world has a reset button," he continued. "Once every generation, let's forget the Nightmare Lord exists! Let's forget all of his deeds, until he does them again, then you'll remember all the years he's haunted you, and then you'll forget yet another time! Oh, you people are so _stupid_!"

At the end he was yelling, roaring, stomping his feet, cracking the floor even more. The walls were shaking with his temper tantrum, and he hit his head with his fists, before stopping abruptly. The smile came back, and then vanished again.

"You lot walk around like I don't exist," he told the silent mass of people that had supported Morton's side of the whole ordeal. "You chitter and chatter, and giggle, and don't believe I exist. But the moment I prove it, you cry out for the injustice. You cry out for my blood. You dare me to show what I did to people, and then yell at me when I actually do it? What the fuck do you people even want from me?"

He grabbed a man and pulled him close.

"Do you want me to kill entire villages again?" Harrison asked. "Make family members watch as I slaughter their mummies and daddies and sons and daughters? Do you want me to torture people for weeks, and have their dead corpses wandering back to their homes, just to hear the family scream in despair?"

He grabbed at a woman who tried to flee past him, and threw the man clear across the room, the body slamming into the wall with a sharp crack. It took Voldemort a moment to realize the man's arm was still in Harrison's grip. Blood poured from the ripped-off limb and once Harrison noticed what he was holding, he simply threw it to the Inferi.

"I would cut out people's organs as they cried for mercy," he told the woman he was holding. "I would laugh in their faces. You demand to see that, and then scream in horror when I do it!"

He threw her aside as well, stumbling back. Magic was dancing uneasily on top of his skin, crackling.

"You people are no different from those three hundred years ago, four hundred, a whole bloody millennia ago," he told them. "You think the Nightmare Lord is just a story, just a fake lord, and then you stand there in horror when I remind you I'm not!"

He turned to look at the rebel leaders.

"And you!" he said, pointing at them. "Look at you. Little children, trying to kill an ancient lord that's been proven to be immortal time and time again! The Veil was a good effort though, I'll applaud you for that attempt."

He did applaud them, walking closer.

"It's hard work, coming out of a Veil," he continued. "I felt like I was losing my mind. Forgetting who I was. Maybe I have, it feels very confusing right now to be in my head. I never had the sharpest of minds, and now all the memories are messed up."

So his old personality mixed with the new one? Voldemort wondered if that was permanent, or just a temporary side-effect of coming back from the dead.

"No one can come back from beyond the Veil!" Hermione called out to him.

"Congratulations, you've met the man who did!" Harrison replied, laughing.

"But you can't be immortal!"

Others were agreeing with her, and Harrison frowned.

"Oh, that old thing again?" he said. "You lot are pathetic, you keep questioning that too. First I'm not the Nightmare Lord, then I'm not immortal, so tiring…"

He looked at her, and then around the atrium.

"I'll show you then," he said. "And this time, how about you don't fucking forget it in ten years' time, huh?"

With that, he held up his hand. Before their very eyes, the fingers turned into sharp claws. Elise moved to her feet, but before she could yell or do anything Harrison dug that hand right into his chest. As blood began to spill to the floor, people stared at him. The more they stared, the more he laughed at the looks on their faces. He turned his other hand into claws as well, digging it in and pulling at his own flesh, tearing it apart.

Pieces of meat and skin fell wetly to the floor, along with blood. They all heard a snap, and he threw away part of a rib bone. It bounced a few times, and people ran away from it. Another bone followed before he yanked at something. More blood came out, and now bubbled from his mouth and nose. He sounded like he was choking, but his hand didn't stop.

His heart was still beating when he brought it out. People screamed. Harrison pulled at it, then grabbed the veins that connected the heart to his body. He tore them. Blood fell like water onto the floor, the noise somehow making Voldemort's skin crawl. Many grimaced and backed away from him.

The heart pumped one time, two times… then the blood flushed out and it stopped right there in the palm of his hand. Harrison's chest stopped moving. He stopped breathing.

But he didn't fall. He turned slowly on his heel, showing them all his heart, ripped out, and as they watched the wound knitted itself back together. Flesh and muscles and nerves grew from nowhere, aided by pulsating magic. New skin stitched over it. Soon enough, the only thing that remained was the blood on unmarked skin.

"Well?" Harrison said.

No one spoke, or even moved.

"Come on then!" he yelled. "Tell me I'm fake. Tell me this isn't my own bloody heart I just ripped out. Tell me I'm not immortal!"

He threw the heart on the floor and screamed, the way he shouldn't be able to do considering his lungs seemed to have given up when his heart was cut out. He still yelled. He could still speak, because he was not a man who followed logic and the way nature was supposed to work.

"Tell me I'm not the Nightmare Lord now!" he told them. "Go on, I dare you. Or do you believe me all of a sudden? I can hear you thinking, you know. Oh, you're disgusted, but mostly, you're afraid. I _love_ when people are afraid. Oh, when the smell lingers in the air… it's _delicious_."

He smiled, and his laughter was utterly breathless. His eyes were shining, the green coming back.

"No one is immortal," Hermione finally managed.

"Perhaps that's true," he said. "No, it is true. One day I will die for real. But not today. Oh, death will be angry for a long time now. It's the second time I turned my back on him. But you five… oh, he'd take you in a heartbeat. Your heartbeat that is; I don't have a heart right now!"

He apparently found that very funny, because he buried his face in his hands as he continued his breathless laughter, shoulders shaking. The Inferi was moving closer. People moved away. They stared at the blood, at the cut-out heart, at the man standing before the rebel leaders. A man that shouldn't be standing. A man that should be dead, but wasn't.

They stared at the Nightmare Lord, and finally knew the fear he inflicted on people. The fear that made them want to escape the atrium and his presence. When he looked up, they drew back. Thankfully, his attention was still on the rebel leaders.

"Then kill us and be done with it," Luna said.

"Oh, I would've done that before you threw me into the Veil," he said. "No doubt about that. I would've had fun doing it too. But I know now. How peaceful it is. I knew it from before, but I _lived_ in the afterlife. I saw old friends. I could touch them. They could touch me. I could feel them in a way I haven't done in so, _so_ many years. The afterlife is pure bliss."

He snapped his fingers, and the Inferi moved in even closer. The Inferi leader in particular was staring at his discarded heart.

"You can have it," he told her.

She threw herself over the heart and began eating it. Harrison looked like he wanted to say something, and then waved if off before turning back to the rebel leaders.

"I'm very angry with you still," he said. "It's a rather pointless anger, I will have forgotten about it in a week and move on, but right now? Right now I'm fucking pissed off."

"What else can you do to us?" Ron yelled.

"Oh, wouldn't you like to know? No wait; you'll know in a minute. But first…"

He walked up to them, then seemed to remember something. He turned around, and found Voldemort.

"I do hope you weren't going to interrogate them or something," he said. "Because I don't feel very patient right now."

Oh, so he was recognizing Voldemort now?

"I've already gotten all the information I needed from them, so you can kill them," Voldemort said. "That's the goal for the day anyway."

"But Lord Voldemort… he killed Morton and Mildred."

Whoever spoke made sure Harrison couldn't see them.

"Morton and Mildred often said the Nightmare Lord ought to prove himself," Lucius said, voice steady. "Prove that he was the man that history described. Hardly his problem that they didn't live past his demonstration."

"Oh, is that pretty?" Harrison said. "Hello, pretty."

"My lord," Lucius replied, bowing lightly to Harrison, before turning to Elise. "He's never going to call me by name, is he?"

"Probably not," Elise said.

"So I can kill them now or what?" Harrison asked.

"You are free to judge and sentence them," Lucius said. "As Minister, I allow this, as the Nightmare Lord has been very kind in the last decade, not continuing his old ways as a courtesy to Lord Voldemort."

"Oh yeah, I did promise that. Plus killing entire villages gets boring after a while. People never come up with any creative insults, it's bad manners. Put some spirit into the last moments of your lives!"

"Master…"

"I'm rambling, aren't I?"

"A little," Elise said.

"Right then, back to killing."

The old personality seemed to have bled out some, leaving behind a Harrison Voldemort began to recognize. Harrison walked up to the rebels where they were held against the walls. He pulled on Ginny's legs, got her down and broke her spine without killing her. Her scream made others flinch, but he only threw her aside as if she was trash, and reached for Luna.

Harrison proceeded to break their spines or legs and arms, so in the end, they were all alive but unable to run or move anywhere fast. He seemed to have locked their magic away too, seeing as none of their attempts at wandless magic seemed to work.

Eventually, they tried to drag themselves away from him. Harrison easily walked up to them and spread his hands; their limbs got stuck to the floor and no matter how much they pulled, they couldn't move much. Everyone else in the atrium was giving him a wide berth, while Voldemort had moved closer, watching with interest to see what he would do to the rebel leaders.

"Nowadays, I don't really kill a lot of people," Harrison stated. "My servants keep suggesting new hobbies for me to try out, bless them, honestly, bless them for putting up with my short attention-span. I'm not even going to kill you today."

"What are you… planning to do?" Neville questioned.

"I didn't bring my Inferi here to look pretty, you know."

Oh. _Oh_. Voldemort placed a hand over his mouth to hide his grin. Harrison spread his hands out, as if to show the Inferi the rebel leaders, and said:

"My Inferi, my dear ones… _dinner_."

They howled, and ran forward, hands out and mouths gaping. Hermione was screaming before the first one even bit into her, but the others followed quickly as the Inferi tore at their bodies. Blood started to flow out on the floor, and chunks of meat vanished between filthy, broken teeth. The Inferi leader wrenched Luna's head up and dug into her eye sockets. She popped the eyes out as if they were marbles, no matter how much Luna was screaming, and held them out to Harrison for inspecting.

"Yes, they are very pretty," Harrison said. "You should see if any of the others have as pretty eyes as those, and pluck them as well."

She grinned and added Luna's eyes to her necklace before moving on to Neville to check his eyes.

"Not so fast," Harrison told the other Inferi. " _Savour_ them."

The Inferi listened. They ate more slowly. No matter how much the five begged, Harrison didn't order the Inferi to kill them or consume them faster. Instead he was watching with an absent smile as they were being eaten alive.

Voldemort enjoyed it, but he could see many who didn't. They slunk away, eyes wide in fear. This was better than any spectacle he could've put up. Now the news would spread; the rebel leaders were dead _and_ the Nightmare Lord was back.

Lucius cleared his throat lightly and looked away as the meat was stripped from Neville's hand, exposing his bones and tendons. Lucius didn't shy away from torture, but there was a limit to how much he could take.

Elise however walked closer, through blood and nudged Hermione's leg closer to some of the Inferi. The Inferi leader had added more eyes and now held the necklace up to Elise, growling softly. Elise held up a hand and whispered a spell; the eyes were preserved and the leader petted the eyeballs.

"Master's heart can't possibly be enough for you," Elise told the woman. "There are five more hearts pumping. I'm sure they will be delicious."

Ginny wailed, and Elise laughed hearing that. The Inferi leader clawed her way to Ginny, who stretched her hand out, grasping Ron's. A little sister's beg for comfort. Harrison tilted his head as he watched the two hands intertwined.

"Don't think being eaten alive will be the end," he said. "Children."

The Dementors perked up.

"My sweet darlings," Harrison said. "Gather around. I made you to be nightmares. To take the souls to a place where there can never be peace. No sweet afterlife. Only darkness… and screaming."

Said Dementors were screaming now, their language grating for many, and Harrison smiled.

"The moment before they die," he said, "rip their souls out. Eat them."

As the Inferi came closer to the rebel leaders' innards, their organs and most importantly, their hearts and lungs, the Dementors swooped down, pulling at each other, screaming. They seemed to be able to communicate somewhat with the Inferi leader, because she pulled Luna up from the ground. Luna was half-eaten, chunks of her completely gone and her face a mess. The Inferi leader tore into her throat, and a Dementor pulled out Luna's soul.

But before it could completely consume it, other Dementors joined in and while Voldemort couldn't see the soul, he could heart it. Through the air, a thin scream as Luna Lovegood's soul was torn to pieces just like her body, and consumed by Dementors, pulled to a place that was most definitely not a peaceful afterlife.

One by one, the others followed. At last, Hermione was dragged from the ground. One of her arms dangled by a piece of flesh, and fell off when the Inferi leader shook her. Hermione was staring at Harrison.

"Your choices brought you here before me today," Harrison said. "Too bad I'm in a bad mood right now. Too bad for you, I mean. Enjoy an eternity of tortured screams and regrets."

With that, the Inferi leader grabbed onto Hermione's throat and ripped it open. Three Dementors shared her soul, pulling it apart.

The body was thrown to the ground, which was a mess of body parts, organs and blood. The Dementors moved back. The Inferi stood up, fresh blood and gore coating their skins. Harrison stood in the middle of it all, a smile on his face.

"I admit, that was pretty entertaining," he said to Voldemort.

He moved through it, smearing his feet bloody in the mess. Silence reigned, and he seemed to enjoy that too. Wherever he looked, most people glanced away in fear.

"So…" he began. "Are we all in an agreement that I'm the Nightmare Lord? An immortal, or as near as immortal one can get. It'd be lovely if we all could agree on that, and that you ignorant fucks actually remembered it for more than ten years at a time."

He turned on the spot to have a look at everyone.

"But don't fear!" he added, clapping his hands. "If you happen to forget, I'll be overjoyed to remind you what I am; I'll burn your house down and as you scream your way to your death, you _will_ remember who I am."

With that, Harrison turned to look at Voldemort.

"Anything else you need me for, Voldemort?" he asked. "I do have to warn you; that's mostly just a courtesy question, as I am in a desperate need of a bath. You'd think death could come up with a more pleasant scent than sweet rot and ashen earth."

-o-

After assurances that he didn't need to stay, Harrison just grabbed Elise and Apparated, creating another orb that would transport the Inferi and Dementors back home despite how much it made his mind swim.

He was beyond exhausted. He could feel it to the very core of his bones, like lead had been poured into every part of his body, including his eyelids.

The manor was looking like… normal. He felt the foreign ward stones, but the magic had been cancelled. Since he felt the other servants, he figured one of them had cancelled the foreign ward stones once the regular wards came back up.

"Master?"

He didn't answer Elise. Instead he was stumbling as he walked through the doors, Elise right behind him. Between one blink and another, the servants had crowded into the hall. Rabastan and Draco weren't far behind. Harry came in last, pulling Lucy and Angel behind him when he saw the state Harrison was in.

Not the exhaustion part, more like the blood and gore part.

"Oh, you all look rather… solemn," Harrison said, blinking heavily. Everything blurred.

"Master," Lucian said. "You're back."

"Of course I am. You know, it's very easy falling through a Veil but it's definitely harder getting out of it. I had to drag myself out. That was painful."

"Where is your heart?" Ywgraine asked. "You're not even breathing, master!"

"He doesn't have a heart?" Draco said.

"I ripped it out earlier," Harrison said. "Don't worry, it had to be done anyway, and I was… annoyed."

"At your own bloody heart?" Draco said. "Are you stupid or what?"

"I thought you knew that already, but no, I wasn't annoyed at my heart. Annoyed at… annoying thoughts, and annoying people. Oh my, why is it so dark?"

"You've closed your eyes," Rabastan's voice came through.

Harrison didn't feel like opening them.

"Someone throw me into a bath," he commanded, and then he fell face first to the floor.

 _To be continued…_

* * *

Yes, the rebel leaders are dead at last!

The end has come, chapter ten: Harrison has finally come home. A look into his return to a normal life, or as normal as it gets when one is the Nightmare Lord.

See you later,

Tiro


	10. Extra

**The Nightmare Man's Journey**

 **Summary** : Sequel to The Nightmare Man, set ten years later. Under the rule of the Dark Lord Voldemort, much still remains the same. Yet rebels still exist, and they fight to remove Voldemort's ally, the Nightmare Lord. Will they succeed?

 **Pairing/s** : None.

 **Warnings** : Mentions and descriptions of violence and gore, OOC-characters, dark!Harry, time travel and other such stuff.

It's good if you've read the prequels _The Nightmare Man_ and _Birth of a Nightmare Man_ , or some confusion might occur.

 **Disclaimers** : I don't own Harry Potter, nor do I make any money writing fanfiction.

 _NOTE: Do not re-upload on any other site; I do not give permission to do so._

-o-

Heya! Not a full chapter, since I'm still slowly working on chapter ten. Instead, you get a small extra while you're waiting. Here you have some aftermath after chapter nine.

-o-

 **Extra**

Elise was used to washing blood and gore off Harrison's robes. She had done it a lot over the centuries. Some centuries more than others, depending on Harrison's mood and his murderous tendencies. It was almost a routine in itself.

Harrison himself hated routines, or anything happening on a regular schedule. Like meals occurring around the same time three times a day. He absolutely loathed that, being confined in any way.

This was why meal times were only regular for some people in Harrison's manor. He could join, when he felt like it, but didn't always eat when others did. Elise had tried to insist it was good for his health to eat on a regular basis. To be fair, she didn't know why she had thought he wouldn't laugh in her face for attempting to use logic on him.

Back to the point. Blood and gore, rinse and repeat. Just that was turning into a routine. Which meant Harrison stopped attacking people at times, when it became a chore, or too much of a scheduled event in his mind.

When it got _boring_.

Elise didn't mind the blood and gore, just as much as she didn't mind the calmer times. For her, the most important thing was that her master was happy.

That had always been her goal, even back when he had no name, and his cold eyes made shivers run down her spine. Back when his words meant to hurt, his hands meant to bruise her. Back when he ripped her tongue out for speaking too much, or asking too many questions, or caring too loudly.

Back when Harrison didn't exist, and the only master she had was the Nightmare Lord. The man who hated himself. The man who wanted to die and live at the same time.

Oh, how she had feared that man. By the gods, did she fear him. Elise remembered every time his voice would get louder, and his eyes darker. She remembered his raised hand.

Slowly, that man had gone away. The four founders had started the journey; for Elise, they had begun the creation of Harrison. Sowed the first seed of a master she didn't have to fear. Only fear for, because the older Harrison got, the more idiotic things he did. The more reckless and careless he became with his own body. With his own life.

When he went through the Veil, and his magic began to disappear, Elise prayed every night for that reckless, stupid man to return. She would always run after him, make sure he didn't completely destroy himself, if it meant he'd return.

She prayed and promised to do old routines, so old she had almost put them in the past, just a few scares in the last ten years.

Dragging her master's broken body back home and placing ripped off limbs on bloody sheets. Waiting for them to reconnect, or grow anew. Watching organs re-grow, bones slowly coming back and her master's skin knit itself back into place. Waiting for her master's lungs to breathe once more, for his heart to beat… for Harrison to _move_. Even if it at times had taken days and weeks and months and _years_.

She would do all that, let him run headfirst into danger and get blasted to pieces, because at least then she would have something solid to touch. She would have something to carry home and put back together.

Her prayers for his safe return were answered at last. Or more like, Harrison had been pushed into the afterlife against his will, by others who meant for him to die, and of course he wouldn't stay then. He had wanted to die for such a long time, but apparently only on his own terms. Not when someone else had tried to push for it.

Elise had felt the magic come back and oh, the relief, the _elation_ , it was hard to describe.

But it all vanished in a cold fog when she saw her master at the Ministry. Saw those black eyes, heard him speak… realizing Harrison wasn't there. Realizing her master was the Nightmare Lord. The man who wouldn't think twice of beating her until she bled if she said one word too many in his presence.

Old habits had kicked in. Elise had bit her tongue bloody to not speak out of turn, to not speak at all and make him upset. She had watched the old lord bleed out, leaving more and more of Harrison, but the fear didn't quite leave.

Not when Harrison keeled over in the hall. Not even as Lucian finished cleaning him up, transferring him to bed where Elise waited. While she was used to seeing her master undressed, Lucian had dressed Harrison in the bathroom, leaving Elise with the job of drying his hair and tucking him in (Harrison would protest the wording, complaining it made him sound like a toddler, but he wasn't awake and Elise could think whatever she wanted). Once she was satisfied with how well-covered Harrison was, she felt her body not able to keep the remaining fear at bay anymore.

Her legs shook, her arms turning to lead. Lucian's hurried steps were lost in the rushing of blood in her ears. Elise only came back to herself while sitting on the floor, Lucian holding her up, his eyes wide.

"Elise, what's wrong? He said.

"Master…" she said.

"Master's fine," Lucian said. "He's _fine_."

"Yes, I know, but before… before, when he just came back…"

"Yes?"

She wouldn't speak of this with the others, Elise knew that. She wouldn't want to dredge up a man they barely knew. A Nightmare Lord the other servants had been spared from. But Lucian had been there with her. He knew, and understood.

"He was like the old days," Elise told Lucian. "The days when anger and rage were the only things he seemed to feel. Lucian, he barely recognized Voldemort at first."

"Oh," Lucian said, sounding faint.

"He killed that stupid man, Morton, and didn't even realize he'd done it. I had to explain, as if master was a child. He held that man's head in his hand and didn'tunderstand the man was _dead_."

Everything came pouring out. Elise had to get it out. How Harrison had acted, how the different versions of him had bled through each other. The way he had laughed, the way he had smiled, how his magic had moved with his mood, cracking the floor and filling the air. His rant, how he tore out his heart and laughed while he did it. Lucian stayed quiet, listening, only nodding a few times.

At last Elise sagged back against him. The motion pushed her back enough so she couldn't see Harrison. She scrambled up and looked at Harrison's pale face.

"Elise, sit down," Lucian said, helping her down onto the bed. "Master is just sleeping."

"I hate it when he doesn't breathe," Elise said. "When there's no heartbeat."

"Me too. He's normally quiet, our silly master, but this is too quiet."

Like he was dead. Harrison appeared dead. His heart was missing, and his lungs had stopped working so technically he was? The rest of his organs had shut down now too, so she couldn't even listen to his blood rushing to them.

But he had magic, and once they quieted down to listen, they could hear the magic.

"He frightened me," Elise said, taking Harrison's hand between her own. "With those eyes, and that _voice_ … it was like turning back time. I was newly his, and whatever I did, I did it wrong. I expected him to rip my tongue out. Had I spoken too much, he would have done it. I know it; he was that far gone, at first."

"I'm sorry I wasn't there with you," Lucian said.

"I'm glad you weren't. He wouldn't have wanted to show either one of us that part of himself. The part he's left behind."

Elise wondered if Harrison would bring it up. If he would remember. She knew she wouldn't mind if he didn't. She didn't blame him, even when logic said she probably should.

"I remember Helga," she said. "She was so angry on my behalf, when they first met us."

"Master was very confused about them," Lucian said. "That she cared so much for a stranger."

"But he liked them at the same time. Or rather, he knew they would be important. Even if he didn't quite remember why."

Their master was terribly complicated. Elise reached out to touch his face.

"I hope he met them," she continued. "In the afterlife. Speaking to portraits isn't the same thing. It's a ghost of them. I hope he saw them, and could _touch_ them."

Lucian nodded. A part of Elise wished she could touch them too. They were… friends? Yes, the founders had been her friends. The servants' friends, along with being Harrison's friends. She missed them too.

She shook her head, and finally stood up. Her legs were holding her. The fear was almost gone. Not forgotten, but moved past. She would never forget the fear, but it wasn't what she chose to focus on.

"The children probably want to see him," she said. "Can you get them?"

"They're outside the door," Lucian replied.

"Open the door then."

The children had never feared Harrison. They never had a reason to fear him. Elise was glad the old personality had vanished back deep into Harrison's mind by the time they made it back to the manor. He wouldn't have wanted to subject them to the Nightmare Lord of old.

Lucy and Angel came first, followed by Harry. Harry looked tired. He had to take on a lot these last few months, while also dealing with Harrison's disappearance. Elise vowed to have him relax a while. Perhaps cook his favourite meals too.

With Elise and Lucian's permission, the girls jumped onto the bed while Harry settled in one of the armchairs. Lucy put her head on Harrison's chest. Her eyes widened.

"His heart really isn't there," she whispered.

"It's not the first time," Elise said. "Knowing master, it won't be the last either."

"He helped me when I was sixteen, having no heart _or_ lungs," Harry said, a tired smile on his face.

"He's so _weird_ ," Lucy said.

She sat up while Angel had her turn of holding her head against Harrison's chest. Harry shifted on the armchair, eyes on the Nightmare Lord. But they moved to Lucy when a small sob escaped her lips, hands immediately smacking over her mouth. They quickly moved to hide her face as another sob came out.

Angel squeezed her eyes shut and held onto Harrison's shirt until her knuckles turned white. Lucy started shaking a bit, and then cried out:

"I started thinking he'd never come back! I'm gonna kick him until he _bleeds_ when he wakes up."

"Don't do that," Lucian said. "It won't be good for Elise's heart to see his blood that quickly. Give it a few weeks."

Lucy nodded, while still hiding her face from them, sniffling loudly. Angel sat up and rubbed at her eyes furiously, wiping away the tears that had started to form. She sniffled a few times as well before saying:

"Why isn't he awake?"

"He's been through a lot, Angel," Elise said. "He needs to rest."

"Oh… but he was awake when he came home."

"Barely," Lucian said. "Getting home probably pushed him past his limits."

"But he's strong," Lucy protested, looking up with red-rimmed eyes at them.

Angel agreed. Harry looked at Elise and Lucian. Harry had seen Harrison in a sorry state before, but never quite this badly. Both Elise and Lucian had dealt with Harrison in a bad state but nothing like this. Neither had encountered anything like this, and thus they didn't know exactly what would happen.

Because who knew what kind of power it took to tear through a Veil? To force your way back to the world of the living? And then call on the Inferi and Dementors… Harrison's magic had been _wild_ , pouring out in waves. Nearly suffocating people. He had been out of control almost, and that was _after_ coming through the Veil.

Harrison had been in the afterlife, physically, for three months. Elise didn't know what kind of damage that did to him. They just had to wait and see.

"He'll be fine, though… right?" Lucy said when neither servant said anything. "Right?"

"Of course he'll be fine," Elise lied.

She didn't know. She hoped. She _prayed_.

End

* * *

So sorry for the long wait for the conclusion of this story! Inspiration-less along with the chaos of the world. Hopefully I'll finish chapter ten soon!

Tiro


	11. Chapter 10 END

**The Nightmare Man's Journey**

 **Summary** : Sequel to The Nightmare Man, set ten years later. Under the rule of the Dark Lord Voldemort, much still remains the same. Yet rebels still exist, and they fight to remove Voldemort's ally, the Nightmare Lord. Will they succeed?

 **Pairing/s** : None.

 **Warnings** : Mentions and descriptions of violence and gore, OOC-characters, dark!Harry, time travel and other such stuff.

It's good if you've read the prequels _The Nightmare Man_ and _Birth of a Nightmare Man_ , or some confusion might occur.

 **Disclaimers** : I don't own Harry Potter, nor do I make any money writing fanfiction.

 _NOTE: Do not re-upload on any other site; I do not give permission to do so._

-o-

Thank you all for your patience, and enjoy the last chapter of _The Nightmare Man's Journey_!

-o-

 **Chapter Ten**

If there was one thing that Harrison disliked about sleeping, it was that he rarely knew how long he had been asleep. So mostly he slept in fits, almost as if his mind forced his body to wake up every few hours to make sure he didn't sleep too long. Because when he wasn't careful, he'd wake up and weeks would have passed, and while that was fine in the past, it wasn't so fine now.

But when he worked his body too hard, he crashed. Coming through a Veil and throwing his magic around like an idiot was pushing a lot of limits and he hadn't been that surprised that he passed out upon returning to his home.

Waking up wasn't easy. His eyes felt sore and gritty, his body ached as if he had been lying still for too long, and he was overly warm. But as he opened his eyes a bit, he recognized the ceiling as that of his own bedroom, to which he drew the conclusion he was at least in his own bed.

And since he no longer smelled like death, someone had indeed thrown him in the bath. Judging from the soreness in his body, and the fresh state of his hair, he must have been bathed more than once.

Harrison tried to lift his arm to rub the grit away, but something was weighing his arms down. He wasn't alone in bed, which once would have been unusual but since adopting children, it was still common enough that he wouldn't be shocked at finding one or more of them in his room.

Angel peeked up from beneath the covers, clinging like a barnacle to the arm he had tried to lift, and his movements seemed to have woken her up. He looked down at her, and her eyes slowly widened. For a few moments, neither of them blinked.

Then the barnacle on his other arm, sorry, Lucy, sat straight up and stared at him.

"He's awake!" she then yelled through the half-open door.

As if waiting for the opportunity to pounce on him, a fierce headache tore through Harrison's skull which made him hiss, reclaim both arms only to pull the pillow over his head.

"Not so loud," he groaned, voice hoarse.

Lucy breathed in and Harrison had instant regrets that he ever opened his mouth.

"Good morning!" she yelled, the loudest she could, and as near his ear she could get.

"Oh dear Merlin, someone smother me already."

Angel started poking his side insistently, and when he finally removed the pillow she flopped down on his stomach, digging her elbows into said stomach. He grunted at the sharp pain, which made her giggle. Of course it made her giggle, that little devil.

"Was that really necessary?" he asked her.

"Yeah!" she agreed.

"Alright, if you say so."

"You made everyone sad," Angel said.

"Sad?"

"Yeah, you disappeared and made everyone sad."

"Hardly everyone," Harrison said. "I assure you at least three people cheered in triumph."

Angel wrinkled her nose at that, before insisting that no, everyone was sad.

"Did I make you sad too?" he asked.

Lucy's face twisted hearing that, before she turned her head away. He could still hear her sniffling wetly, and turned his head slowly to look at Angel. Angel, whose eyes were big and round and wet, and _fuck._ He did not deal well with tears. In fact, he hated dealing with crying people.

But as Angel started to actually cry, Harrison's hands moved on their own, the traitors. He took her head in his hands and used his thumbs to stroke the tears away.

"That sad, huh?" he said and she nodded.

Lucy's breath hitched, one of her hands clutching his shirt. She kept wiping at her face.

"I didn't mean to make you sad," Harrison told Angel. "My little devil, no, my devils… I didn't mean that. I'm just… I'm stupid Uncle Harrison who didn't think ahead."

"You never think ahead!" Lucy burst out.

"It's one of my many faults, and the main one that will drive Elise to the brink of insanity one day."

"I wanted to kick you until you bled, but Lucian said that wouldn't be nice to Elise, so that's the only reason why I'm not doing it, you hear?!"

"I… thank you?"

Before Lucy could say anything else, the half-open door practically flew off its hinges, crashing into the wall. Elise and Lucian came in first, and stopped short when they saw he actually was awake. That was a bad idea, apparently, because the rest of the servants came stampeding in, and crashed spectacularly. Harrison stared as they all fell to the floor in a heap of limbs and curses.

He sat up and Angel decided to wipe the rest of her tears on his shirt before snuggling in. Lucy turned back to him, eyes red-rimmed but clear, and joined Angel in clinging to him. They watched the group of people struggle, until Angel giggled and said:

"I'll fucking choke you to death with your innards if you don't get off me now!"

"Elise, you're teaching Angel bad phrases," Harrison said in alarm. "Hang on a minute… you all are! Ywgraine, where did you learn to say _that_? No, don't bloody repeat it to me!"

"Oh, for the love of Merlin…!" Rabastan managed as he rose himself from the pile of bodies.

He immediately got snagged on Joanne's arm and fell rather gracelessly onto the bed. He grunted, and bared his teeth when Angel and Lucy had the nerve to laugh at him.

Harrison realized not everyone was part of the pile that was trying to get up from the floor. Harry, for instance, was in an armchair, and from the looks of it he had been sleeping in it.

"My bed's big enough for you too, Harry," Harrison said even as the girls moved around, getting into better positions by his sides. "Lucy, that's my neck, don't choke me."

"She kicks," Harry replied, pointing at Angel. "And Lucy steals all the covers."

"You should've brought more," Lucy said, arms still looped around Harrison's neck.

"I did! Four times, you stole them all!"

"Lies."

"Lucy, still choking me."

"I'm not," Lucy said. "It's called a hug."

"This is not a hug. This is strangling. Angel, she's strangling me."

"She's not," Angel said.

Another one not part of the pile on the floor, Draco, now peeked into the room with a tray in his hands.

"Good morning," he said to Harrison. "Dick."

"Oh, shut it Malfoy," Harrison replied.

"Want some breakfast? Once people have untangled themselves and gotten off the floor like proper adults."

Once the servants heard they might force their master to wait for his food, they quickly stumbled upright with minimal complaining, although Harrison saw Christian elbow Joanne, who retaliated by pulling his hair.

"Stop squabbling," Draco ordered and they did.

Which, rude. How come when Draco ordered them around they listened immediately? Had Harrison lost his touch? Was he not intimidating enough anymore? Hang on; he didn't want to be intimidating. Well, he wanted to be, but not with the servants.

His head was hurting again, so he stopped thinking.

Draco entered the room properly, and Harrison turned to him and Rabastan.

"Fred and George said hello," he told them. "Professor Snape did not. He sneered. You two might be better at interpreting that. It could've been a hello for all I know."

"You met Fred and George?" Rabastan said. "Our dimension's Fred and George?"

"Yes, I did," Harrison said. "They escorted me most of the way through the afterlife. In fact, I met a lot of people there. An awful lot of them basically told me to be ashamed of my life."

"And?" Draco said as he put the tray down on the bed.

"Some of them said that with their actions, actually. Hermione, for example; she tried to kill me. That was a bit of fun."

"She tried to kill you… in the afterlife?" Draco said.

"I can't blame her for trying," Harrison replied. "Besides, I just had to admire her stubbornness. I bet if I return to her afterlife in a thousand years, she'll still try to kill me. You know, just for formality's sake."

"So, what, you met people you killed?" Rabastan wondered.

"It was like a walk down memory-lane… so yes, it definitely included people I killed. There was a lot. Most of them weren't terribly happy with me. Can't say I was happy to see them either, as I could've done more productive things with my time in the afterlife."

"Like what?" Draco wondered.

"Having tea with the founders," Harrison said. "Talk more with Fred and George. See if professor Snape knew how to smile in a manner that wasn't smug or looking like it physically pained him to move his facial muscles that way."

"What you're saying is that you would have rather done anything else than meet those you killed," Rabastan concluded for him.

"I'd rather watch grass grow," Harrison confirmed. "The grass wouldn't have tried to kill me, or worse, talk to me. Dreadfully boring, talking, especially when it's with people I killed. I spoke to Dumbledore too, and you know what he did?"

"He tried to kill you too?" Rabastan wondered.

"No, worse! He tried to forgive me!"

"The nerve of the man," Draco said sarcastically, before shoving a fork into Harrison's mouth. "Now eat."

Harrison took the fork out and looked ready to spit the food out. But then he chewed and swallowed, and took the plate from the tray.

"Can I have some?" Angel asked.

"Harrison needs to eat," Draco told her.

"Oh, that's true. I'll get something later then."

"I can go and do it," Joanne said. "The food, I mean. Breakfast. Is it breakfast, or lunch?"

"Brunch?" Ywgraine tried with.

"Does it matter?" Severus wondered. "Food is food."

"Uncultured swine," Ywgraine said with no heat in her voice.

Severus bared his teeth, which only made her laugh.

"Well, you can go and make food, whatever you want to call it," Harrison said. "And you can take the rest of them with you."

Several protests were raised, the servants speaking over each other. Harrison arched a brow, and everyone's voices died out as they stared at him.

"I don't need an audience watching me eat," he said.

"Might make him finish the food for once…" someone muttered.

"Shut up," Harrison said. "Now, you all know I'm awake… I'm eating, I'm… here? Present? Right, you can all feel that I'm here?"

They nodded in unison.

"Well then, you know I'm still here even if you don't look at me."

"But master…" Louis began.

"I won't eat another bite if you all stand there and stare at me."

"You're gonna eat," Draco said, "if I so have to shove each forkful down your throat."

"Nope, not gonna eat if everyone stares at me."

The servants looked at each other. They seemed to have a silent conversation going on, there was a lot of nodding among them, and all but Elise and Lucian left.

"Right," Harrison said. "I could ask what that was all about… but right now, I don't really care."

Instead he went back to eating. Normally he'd nibble on things, push them around, or cut them up into tiny pieces. Normally it took Harrison a long time to finish his food. Sometimes he didn't finish it. Sometimes he didn't even touch it. The servants had likened him to a child in that aspect. An infuriating one.

Now it was gone in two minutes, and he looked down at the plate.

"I'm contemplating licking it," he informed everyone in the room.

"Or, you know, you ask for more like a normal person," Draco said and snatched the plate from him.

"Oh yeah, that works too. I'd like some more."

"Wow, even asked nicely. I better appreciate it before you turn back to a cranky toddler during mealtime."

He left the room before Harrison could get a word in, and so Harrison settled in back against the pillows instead. Elise didn't look as relieved as he thought she would look.

"Why are you staring at me like that?" he asked.

"You never eat this much, master," she said.

"Well, the only thing I had in the afterlife was tea," he said. "And I'm not even sure it was real tea. Is there real tea in the afterlife? And how long was I there anyway?"

"Three months."

" _Oh_. Sorry about that; didn't really feel like three months to me."

Angel and Lucy had been suspiciously quiet throughout; Harry was quiet too, but Harrison knew the young man had his quiet spells. The girls, not as much.

Angel though, she sometimes did things instead of speaking. Like now; being small for her age, she had apparently decided right now that climbing up on his shoulders was an excellent idea. Harrison decided not to start questioning it.

"Don't pull my hair," he just warned her.

Lucy however, pressed a hand against his chest.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Do you know how creepy it was to put my head on your chest and hear nothing?" Lucy asked. "Like, no heartbeat, no lungs breathing. You didn't even move."

"Then why did you do it?"

"I wanted to make sure you were real!"

"Poking me would've reassured you just as much."

"I'm trying to… argh, you're impossible!" Lucy punched him. "So what, you just grew a new heart?"

"Yes, I thought you already knew this," Harrison replied.

"Well, I never really had to experience you ripping your heart out."

"He used to do that," Lucian said.

"Used to," Harrison stressed, grabbing onto Angel when she wobbled on top of his shoulders.

"I hope you're not starting that up again," Lucy said. "Why did you even rip it out in the first place?"

"It was damaged!"

"You heal from stuff like that!" Lucy protested.

"It was too heavily damaged," Harrison amended. "Just easier to rip it out and start anew."

"People questioned his immortality," Elise added. "So he ripped it out and let the Inferi leader eat it."

"She likes hearts," Harrison defended himself.

"Does that mean she'll start eating on you?" Lucy asked, which made Angel make a disgusted face.

"No, she likes me," Harrison said.

"But she eats people, and if you gave her your heart she might expect to have it again?"

"I'll tell her not to eat me, then."

"That'd be good, because I kinda don't want you to get eaten."

"Well, I really don't want her to eat me."

Draco came back with more food, and Harrison dropped Angel on the bed before devouring that portion too. Elise began pouring him a glass of water when he waved at her to hand over the entire pitcher, which he then drained.

He managed to get one leg off the bed after that, when Elise pulled it up and pushed him back fully onto the bed.

"You're staying right there, master," she warned.

"Oh, here we go again…" Harrison muttered.

"I can have the chains here in a moment."

"That still sounds kinky," Harrison said and Elise glared at him. "Fine, I won't go anywhere! Except for the bathroom. I am allowed to go the bathroom at least, right?"

Elise measured the distance between the bed and bathroom, and then moved the entire bed three feet closer. She didn't even use magic for it; she just braced herself against the bed and pushed it manually while Harrison watched her with raised eyebrows.

"Alright, you've made your point," he said once she was done.

"Good," Elise replied.

"Shouldn't you two get something to eat?" Harrison asked Angel and Lucy. "You too, Harry."

"Later," Harry said, curling up in the armchair.

"I'm still tired," Lucy said. "So I'm going back to sleep."

"You have a bed, I presume. Or did you get rid of it?"

"Yours is more comfortable," Lucy said.

Angel fluffed up a few pillows and settled down, a leg thrown over Harrison's lap. Lucy did the same on the other side of Harrison and within minutes, they were asleep and he was left staring at them.

Meanwhile, Elise and Lucian were staring at him. Draco had settled in an armchair and Rabastan leaned against it.

"Why are all of you staring at me?" Harrison asked at last.

"You've been missing for three months," Draco said. "Excuse us if we want to make sure you just don't vanish into thin air."

"That sounds very dramatic," Harrison replied.

"I wouldn't put it past you," Rabastan told him.

"It's just," Elise said before anyone of them could continue. "Your magic, master… it disappeared. When you fell through the Veil. It started vanishing from us, the servants collapsed one by one and in the end… only I and Lucian remained awake."

"We lost hope," Lucian added. "That you'd return to us."

"Well, one day I won't be coming back," Harrison said and the two flinched. "Now, now, you two, everything dies. Everyone dies. Even if it takes a really long time for some of them."

"Master…" Elise began.

"But when I do die for real," Harrison interrupted, looking at them, "you will all be coming with me."

"What do you mean?" Lucian asked.

"You are alive because of my magic. You can't survive if it vanishes for real."

"Do you promise that you'll take us with you?" Elise said.

"It's not a promise, silly. Or an oath; it's just a fact. Didn't you hear me? It's going to happen. When I die, Elise, when I truly die and my magic goes away… my servants will all die with me."

Hearing something like that would probably frighten some people. To be told they would not be able to choose their own end, or cling onto life without one person's magic to sustain them. But both Elise and Lucian sagged with relief instead. Like dying with their master was exactly what they wanted.

Harrison managed to make the two leave at last, to inform the other servants of what he said, and he was left with Rabastan, Draco, Harry and the two sleeping girls.

"I met my parents," Harrison said when the silence lasted too long.

"Your parents?" Draco said.

"Yes. That was an awful experience. I never want that to happen again; I'd rather let Dumbledore try and forgive me instead."

"Sometimes, I have trouble wrapping my head around how your mind works," Draco said.

"You assume he has a mind that actually works?" Rabastan asked and got a pillow thrown in his face by Harrison.

Harry stayed quiet, staring down at the floor.

"What is it, Harry?" Harrison asked.

"Your parents," Harry began. "You mean… James and Lily?"

"Yes. My James and Lily. If yours were there, I didn't see them. So it was just my James and Lily. They were rather angry, which is weird."

"Why is that weird?" Rabastan asked.

"Well, they died when I was just a toddler, yet they were so invested in… in me, I guess."

"They died for you, might have something to do with it."

"That is true. But does that mean I have to be on their side for the rest of eternity just because of that? I feel like I had the right to make my own choices, even if that meant becoming the type of person they would consider an enemy. Oh, that's right; Sirius and Remus were there too! Not like it made the whole meeting better. Worse, actually. Why did I ever like them now again?"

"Because back when you were a kid, you were on their side," Rabastan said. "They cared about you, and you cared about them."

"But that's barely anything compared with how long I've lived," Harrison complained. "And also, they must have seen bits and pieces of my life; did they honestly think I would change my mind seeing them in the afterlife? Just look back on centuries of living and say it was all a mistake and I want to be their little golden boy again?"

"They had to try, I suppose," Rabastan said.

"Just like Hermione Granger had to try and kill you in the afterlife," Draco added.

"You do have a point there. Also, the last time I saw them, I was walking to my death and had called on them. I wanted company. And reassurance."

"Reassurance for what?" Harry wondered.

"That dying wouldn't hurt," Harrison replied. "Sirius said it was quicker than falling asleep. If you die falling through a Veil, he isn't wrong, it didn't hurt falling through the Veil. But there have been plenty of times when death is near, and it's just been agony."

His head began to list to the side, and then he began having a hard time keeping his eyes open.

"What was I saying now again?" he asked after a while.

"I think the old man needs more naptime," Rabastan said.

"Naptime?" Harrison replied. "Isn't that for children?"

"Not just for children," Draco told him. "Most people like naps."

"I don't. Or do I? Elise?"

"She's not here to tell you," Harry said. "But you do take naps quite frequently."

"I do? Might as well do it now then."

"That sounds like a good plan," Rabastan told him. "That, and I'm not sure you can keep yourself awake anyway."

"I could," Harrison protested, not even bothering to open his eyes.

Rabastan walked over to the bed and gave Harrison a light shove. He flopped down onto the bed, the girls barely stirring.

"Or maybe not," Harrison conceded. "Are the devils still here?"

"You ain't getting rid of them that easily," Rabastan said.

Harrison hummed. And then he was asleep.

"That was fast," Rabastan continued.

"He normally kicks up such a fuss," Draco said.

"Like a cranky toddler," Rabastan said, which made Harry snort. "But then again, he was in the afterlife for three months. If it doesn't kill him, at least it should make him tired for a while?"

"It better make him tired and stay right here, or I won't survive Elise's temper tantrum if he runs off like a bloody moron," Draco said.

-o-

Now, Harrison had suffered injuries before. Elise had a list over every injury, only so she could smack said list in Harrison's face when he tried to argue with her about the times he got himself hurt.

He had been torn apart and put together. He had lost organs and blood and bones. He had been left in a healing sleep for years, or for days, weeks, months. He knowingly got himself injured on a regular basis, dropped his guard and thus was forced to drag himself back home with more blood on him than still in his own veins, because he was a fucking idiot.

Being dragged through a Veil wasn't really his fault. He hadn't set out to do it, like he sometimes did with injuries he sustained. Some damages done were only done due to Harrison allowing the harm to reach him. Over the last ten years, that had been slowly decreasing.

So he hadn't planned on falling through a Veil, or allowed any damage to be done to him. A new heart was something that kept him in bed for a few days, but he had slept peacefully while his new heart was created.

Usually, he would spring right back in action after things like that, like nothing had happened, much to the frustration of everyone around him. Sometimes, he didn't even fully heal before springing back to said action, which frustrated them even more.

He should've rested while the heart was created and then pop right out of bed to go about his day. Or run, to avoid being caught by an enraged Elise once she saw he wasn't listening to her orders about staying in bed. That was normal for the Nightmare Lord.

But this time? This time was different. Harrison's heart had grown back. His organs were just fine, in tip-top shape. Nothing was physically wrong with him. He should pop out of bed and waste energy just being chased around for not being in said bed, but he didn't.

Instead he slept.

He would sleep, then wake up and go to the bathroom, before going right back to sleep again. He would be prodded awake to eat something, but once he was done he went to sleep again. For two weeks, he truly only left the bed to go to the bathroom, which pleased Elise; he was staying in one place.

It also worried Elise, because he _was_ staying in one place. He wasn't following the usual script. Even when he had lost limbs he would try and get out of bed, if he wasn't missing half of his organs or bleeding internally. If he just lost an arm, he refused to even rest; instead he just popped it back on and called it a day.

He hadn't lost any limbs and his organs were in perfect condition, and his sleeping patterns didn't match with the times when he slept for months. Harrison just seemed… tired, in a way he hadn't been before the Veil.

Angel tried to make him stop sleeping so much by making messy braids in his hair on purpose, but not even when she put pink bows at the ends did he seem to get out of whatever hole this incident had put him in.

Lucy tried to annoy him out of bed by poking his sides, but the only thing that happened was him swatting her hands away and muttering about little devils that should be in school already.

It was time for them to return to school, but Elise had taken the decision to keep them home until Harrison was back to normal. Or at least until after Halloween. Angel's school had been informed and would hand over her course work to Ywgraine to take home to Angel, and Lucy would do her work at home until after Halloween.

It was unheard of for a student to be absent for part of the year at Hogwarts, but Lucy was a special case and Voldemort had pushed for it when Elise asked. Harry and Severus had returned though, as they were professors, but Harry returned home every day instead of staying at the school. Severus remained more often, but even he returned to the Nightmare Lord's manor more than he usually did during school years.

After those two weeks had passed with no change, Elise took a page out of Lucy's book and was there with her one day, poking at Harrison. Harrison opened one eye. Once he saw Elise, he raised his head from the pillow, squinting at them, and said:

"Why are you annoying me, Elise? I've hardly moved from the bed, I've done what you want. Now shoo."

"Don't tell me to shoo, master," Elise replied. "You're taking a walk today."

"Oh, am I now?"

"Yes."

"And if I don't feel like it?"

Elise's eyes narrowed.

"Lucy," she said.

Lucy yelled for Angel who came running, jumping up on the bed. Lucy whispered in her ear, and Angel nodded. They turned to Harrison and his eyes widened as their eyes began to glisten. But before they could start crying properly, he sat up and said:

"Alright, fine, I'll take a bloody walk!"

Immediately the girls stopped sniffling, and high-fived Elise instead.

"You get double dessert today," Elise told them.

"Traitors," he hissed at the girls, who laughed in his face and ran off.

Rabastan came into the room just as Harrison was getting dressed.

"They've got you neatly wrapped around their finger," he told Harrison.

"Oh, don't remind me," Harrison said. "It's not news anyway."

"If we're being honest, Harry's got you wrapped around his finger too. He's just nicer about it."

"That's it; I'm giving up. Hanging up my title. The Nightmare Lord is no more, there's only cranky Uncle Harrison that can't do anything but indulge those bastard children."

"I think all of their parents were married when they had their kids."

"Oh, shut up."

"Your robes are on backwards."

"… Damn it."

"Need help?" Rabastan said.

"Might as well go all out. I'm a cranky, old man who needs more naps than a toddler and I can't even dress myself anymore."

"Well, you are very good at forgetting even the basic stuff," Rabastan said, perhaps more to stop thinking about how Harrison's hands fumbled.

Could the Veil have done some permanent damage on Harrison that only now started to show itself? Was this… going to remain?

Rabastan didn't want to think about it, but it was hard not to when he realized Harrison was a lot slower than normal, and even seemed unstable on his feet. He gave in, and wrapped Harrison's hand around his arm.

"Is there something wrong?" Rabastan asked as they slowly walked down the stairs.

"I'm not dying, if that's what you're thinking," Harrison said. "It's just… strange."

"What is?"

"Adjusting."

"Adjusting to what?"

"To the living world?"

"I hate the fact that you don't sound very sure about it."

"Well, I am actually not sure about it. I've never gone through a Veil before, and then come back out it."

"Is it staying this way?" Rabastan dared to ask as they reached the front doors.

Harrison pushed them open, skin white against the sunlight. He looked sick.

"No," he answered absently. "Just… adjusting."

"You said that already."

"It's still true."

Harrison let go of Rabastan's arm, and walked out. Rabastan moved after him, unwilling to let him get too far away. Harrison stopped after a bit and tilted his head up to the sun, closing his eyes. Rabastan observed him.

The slow smile that came over Harrison's face was achingly familiar, and more like him than what Harrison had been doing for the last two weeks.

"Oh, I hate the fact Elise was right," Harrison said all of a sudden, breathing in deeply.

"What do you mean?"

"I really needed a walk."

With that, Harrison set off. He was sure on his feet, the slowness near-gone. The trees, black and glistening in the sun, began to move their branches. The sounds of them moving cut through the quiet grounds, and Harrison almost ran over to them in his usual manner.

"My lovelies!" he said, as if the trees were alive. "Oh, you look wonderful."

A few branches reached down towards him, and he reached up for them. Rabastan snorted.

"And to think I worried…" he said. "You two, you can come out now."

Elise and Lucian appeared, having shadowed them the entire way.

"He flipped from slow to fast," Lucian said. "I don't get it."

"Prolonged bed-rest isn't good for anyone," Rabastan said. "Bodies get stiff, no matter the age. You should remember that, from the past. When he slept for months on end."

"He was stiff," Elise recalled. "But he didn't wake on an off and wanted to stay in bed."

"Well, it's a bit different this time. I'm just saying, two weeks of mostly sleeping is enough to make him stiff. That, and his appetite's terrible. Fucking bastard enjoys driving us up the walls by not eating properly."

Elise smiled for a moment, but it vanished just as quickly as she and Lucian stepped up to stand by Rabastan.

"It's just," she began. "It's just that this is the first time he's worried me this much. I can't help but wanting… well."

"You want to wrap him up and keep him away from the world?" Rabastan ventured.

She nodded.

"Not that master actually needs to be coddled," Lucian said.

"He hates that," Elise added.

"Nearly as much as he hates over-boiled vegetables."

"To be fair on him, I think everyone hates that," Rabastan said.

"I just want to keep him from hurting himself, or letting others hurt him," Elise said. "Master just… lets it happen."

"Well, he's an idiot, and sorry, he's been that way ever since he was a kid. There's no cure for that."

Meanwhile, Harrison was chatting to the trees as if they were people. To him, they were probably better than most people because they weren't annoying. Some of the branches reached down far enough to grab him. The Dementors were quick to gather, some of them holding onto him so he wouldn't fall when the branches let go.

He looked over at them after a while, and hollered:

"What are you three standing around and looking so depressed for?!"

"It's your fault!" Rabastan hollered back.

"I haven't even done anything yet!"

"You will do something, you always do!"

"I know that," Harrison protested, "but don't expose me like that!"

-o-

Voldemort had visited Harrison's manor several times since the Nightmare Lord's return, in between meetings at the Ministry. There was too much paperwork and too many late nights, and not something he ever expected his life to be.

But the crack within the Ministry had to be fixed. The issue with Harrison and his legacy had largely been solved due to Harrison's actions at said Ministry. Who knew spilled guts would be just the thing to silence someone's protests?

However, Voldemort wasn't satisfied with current actions and as soon as Harrison woke up and Voldemort could ask for permission, Voldemort made sure to release an updated history of the Nightmare Lord. Including everyone who thought him a fake, and about the people who thought the Nightmare Lord was the work of a group. Mainly to show the present people how the past people had been so wrong so many times.

Lucius, upon hearing more details from Harrison's early life, dug into the Malfoy history and found Malfoys that had named the Nightmare Lord as an acquaintance, which basically said those Malfoys considered him more or less a friend.

Once Lucius had made his family's history connecting to that of the Nightmare Lord and also made it known, other families soon did the same.

"Master met a lot of people over the years," Elise explained when Voldemort brought it up.

"Be honest with me, Elise," Voldemort said. "How many of those families did he actually remember the day after?"

"He remembered the Malfoys, because they were pretty."

"Of course he did. Anyone else?"

"Not really."

But while Harrison forgot, Elise hadn't. She had pretty much written up everyone Harrison had met. Those who sided with him, and those who didn't. She wrote up the families that stood at his side, and those he brought to an end, down to the last family member and the reasoning for it. If there was a reason. Sometimes there wasn't.

"He eradicated a family line due to a duel once," Elise told Voldemort once she realized he was interested in hearing how Harrison had wrecked havoc on magical families back in the old days.

"What?"

"The son was offended so the father, lord Eurys, demanded a duel with master. The son kept referring to us as slaves. It was fun killing him."

"And the rest of the family?" Voldemort asked.

"Well, master and lord Eurys duelled for ownership. Since master killed lord Eurys, he got everything lord Eurys had, including the entire family."

"Oh… anything else like that?"

"He cut off a student's head once," Elise replied. "But he didn't touch the family."

"A student's head? _At_ Hogwarts?"

"To be fair, the student attacked him first, and he had the right to retaliate."

"I read nothing about that happening at Hogwarts," Voldemort said. "And I read most of the books about Hogwarts' history."

"Events are left out, or forgotten. Old accounts were lost or buried. For a time, even we servants forgot about Hogwarts."

"How could you forget?"

"After the founders' deaths, it was too painful for master to hear about the school. So we forgot it, so we wouldn't accidentally bring it up."

"What are you telling Voldemort, Elise?"

Harrison looked at them both from the doorway, arms crossed and eyes squinting.

"About our days at Hogwarts," Elise replied.

"And you killing an entire family line," Voldemort continued.

"I did that?" Harrison asked Elise.

"Lord Eurys and his son, Ulgar," Elise said as Harrison came into the room.

"Eurys… Eurys… that does sound familiar…" Harrison tapped his chin a few times. "Oh! Lucian was upset I left his entrails hanging in the chandelier!"

"Yes, he was, master. And you destroyed a set of robes with that duel."

"I didn't rip it apart."

"Drenching it in blood, master."

"Well, that was a rather normal occurrence for me back in the days. Why the sudden interest in my past, Voldemort?"

Harrison didn't sound upset about it, and his posture was relaxed as he settled in an armchair. In fact, once they had gotten him out of bed Harrison had pretty turned back to normal.

"Once people began to dig, some of them found out their families once knew you. It's proof you've been around for a long time."

"Well, there will always be someone saying I'm not me. They'll say it's a group. A whole line of Nightmare Lords, made to look the same. There are some who will never believe in immortality. They'll blame everything else, _anything_ else, rather than face the truth."

"Yes, but they'll have a harder time to convince others with all this old history finally seeing the light of day," Voldemort replied. "You're finally going to be mentioned throughout history, in history books, where you should have been all this time. Known, and not intentionally forgotten."

"I suppose that's nice," Harrison said. "But again, there will always be people who refuse to believe it. I've lived through that enough times to know this time won't be any different."

"We'll deal with it then," Voldemort said. "Instead of letting it fester like it did with Morton."

"Who's Morton?" Harrison asked.

"The man whose head you ripped off right after you returned from beyond the Veil," Voldemort said.

"I did?"

"Now you're just being difficult on purpose."

"One never knows with master," Elise said. "Master's memory is truly terrible at times."

"That's mean," Harrison said. "But unfortunately true. Elise's my memory, for the most part. I can't be bothered, and she likes making lists anyway."

Voldemort and Elise looked at each other, Elise with the look of the long-suffering. Voldemort knew by now that teasing Harrison was alright, and that while his servants would never leave him, they never said no to teasing their master a little bit.

"What do you say, you want a new master?" Voldemort therefore said to Elise. "I promise you that I'm not the forgetful type."

"I'll consider it," Elise said, and Harrison fake-gasped, hand over his heart.

"Oi!"

-o-

Unfortunately, Harrison's prediction came through. It was near Christmas, and people were already questioning his immortality. Ministry people, even! People who had been there when Harrison had decided to decorate part of the atrium floor with body parts.

Voldemort was developing a constant headache. He definitely felt like killing some of them, if not all of them. Once he looked closer, he realized most of them were part of Morton's group, because of course they were. His idiocy had rubbed off on them. They whined about petty problems just like him, and thought themselves more important than others. They acted like spoiled children, upset when things didn't go the way they wanted something to go.

Voldemort didn't like whining. Didn't really enjoy children either. How the hell had Harrison managed to raise three of them without wanting them dead at least once? A toddler, a young child, and a teenager to boot. As far as Voldemort knew, Harrison was not really a patient man, and yet they were all still alive and were very fond of the man as well.

He was getting off topic. The group. They were demanding more proof of the Nightmare Lord being who he claimed to be. As if they hadn't seen Harrison in action before.

They were acting brave when they didn't have to see Harrison face to face. They turned into more into Morton every time Voldemort had to interact with them, just as moronic and ignorant and downright rude.

Just how angry could Lucius get if the atrium floor was covered in body parts and blood two times in the span of six months?

Voldemort was thinking out scenarios and explanations to give to Lucius when he inevitably would end up slaughtering at least a few members of the group surrounding him, prattling on and on about the Nightmare Lord and what a fake he must be, when he heard the most wonderful interruption:

"Good evening, Voldemort. Or is it morning? I couldn't tell when I left home and there are no windows here. Why is the Ministry underground now again? Do they enjoy the damp? Is there damp?"

Everyone in the group went silent. All bravado and complaining stopped at the sound of Harrison's voice. They parted and turned as one, staring at Harrison. Harrison looked back at them. Elise however was glaring at them from her spot next to her master. Ywgraine, sweet Ywgraine, was casually flipping a dagger while smiling widely at everyone in the group.

"Harrison," Voldemort said. "I didn't expect you to come here. You don't care for politics."

"You have to do politics when visiting the Ministry?" Harrison said, frowning. "Is that a rule? Elise, is that a rule?"

"No, master. But you usually only come here for political reasons."

"I do? Last time I was here, I killed people. That was fun. Also, did you know you can nail people to the roof? With swords?"

"Yes, I do know that, master. You've done it before."

"Yes, with Cornelius. That was also fun. But no, not politics, Voldemort, that's not why I'm here."

"Anywhere you'd like to go then?" Voldemort asked, very eager to get away from the group before he accidentally killed a few of them.

Surely Lucius wouldn't be _that_ angry if it happened? It wasn't like the world would miss any of them.

"I wanted to see the Veil," Harrison said.

"That can certainly be arranged, but may I ask why?"

"Just curious."

"Master has already promised not to touch the Veil," Elise said.

"What did you threaten him with?" Voldemort asked her.

Most of the group had begun to edge away from them. Fucking morons. Brave and ignorant until the danger comes near.

"Routines," Elise replied, which made Harrison grimace.

Of course something like routines would be a genuine threat for Harrison.

"And three meals a day that he has to finish," Elise continued.

"I eat three meals a day," Harrison protested.

"No, master, you eat one, maybe, and nibble on two, and sometimes you don't even do that, you just arrange the food on the plate into a smiley face and leave."

"Oh, hush. The Veil, Voldemort? Who are these people anyway?"

They all flinched when Harrison's attention was turned to them.

"No one important," Voldemort said. "But I do hope they are going to stop bothering me for something that's already been proven?"

Elise glared harder. She at least seemed to recognize them. Harrison however, was looking at them with more of a confused look.

"Elise, do I know them?" he asked. "They seem familiar. This… feeling is creeping up in me."

"What feeling, master?" Elise asked.

"I just have this… _urge_ to tear them apart. Can I do that? That would be fun. Voldemort, can I do that?"

Already now magic sparkled in his hands. The group took the chance and fled out of the atrium and Harrison reined the magic back in.

"Aw, they ran away," he said.

"You can always chase after them, master," Ywgraine said sweetly.

"Oh, it wouldn't be _that_ fun to kill them that they're worth that much of my time."

"They were part of Morton's group. The man you killed?"

"The man who considered you a fake," Elise explained.

"Yes him, I do actually remember him this time around," Harrison said.

"Liar," Ywgraine replied.

Harrison swatted a hand at her, and Voldemort moved to lead them to the Veil.

-o-

Two days later, eight of the members of that group ended up eviscerated and hung up by their own entrails. They stopped bothering Voldemort and Lucius after that.

Harrison pretended to be innocent for about five seconds, before admitting to killing them.

"So you did chase after them," Voldemort said.

"No, Elise did," Harrison replied. "She thought it might make me happy."

"And did it?"

"Well, it certainly was entertaining for a bit."

-o-

Christmas. A Muggle holiday Harrison remembered hating when he lived with the Dursleys. It was hard not to, when he was locked up in the cupboard while they ate food and opened gifts.

It had become better at Hogwarts, he rather liked Christmas back then, but then he lost track of the holiday for many years, due to it not existing back where he ended up.

However, it was now a holiday that had somehow become… tradition? Perhaps mostly the last ten years. Harrison remembered celebrations before his imprisonment, but also Elise hanging up bone garlands for no goddamn reason. Nowadays, she usually only brought them out for Christmas.

This Christmas was no different, and another tradition that apparently was in lately was waking Harrison up way too early on Christmas morning.

Angel and Lucy did, that is, by jumping on him. Harrison pulled his head from the pillows bit out at Lucy:

"Are you not a teenager?"

"Yes?"

"Teenagers sleep late. I remember that much, at least. They don't go up at dawn and harass their poor uncles."

"I don't feel sorry for you," was all she responded with before falling on his back. "Did I break your back?"

"Don't sound so bloody elated about it, you menace. And no, you didn't. It's rather hard to break a spine. Necks however, necks are easier, it's all about the twist…"

Angel ran off to the bookshelves.

"Pick something not bloody," Harrison told her as he finally pushed Lucy off him. "Elise will have my head if I read something bloody on Christmas. I don't understand why I can't; you two aren't bothered by it."

"Do you think it's strange you still read for us?" Lucy asked once Angel came back with a book and Harrison was sitting up against the headboard.

"Why?" Harrison said, confused. "You want me to."

"Yeah, but we aren't kids anymore."

"You have to be a kid to have someone read for you? That's stupid. Now shut up and listen."

They shut up, and listened. It was a good morning.

At nine, they all went downstairs and Harrison thought he should be nice, thus eating his breakfast without complaints or arranging the food into a smiley face. Both Harry and Severus were present, having left Hogwarts last night. Severus would return later, apparently, while Harry was spending the holiday here, taking Lucy back to Hogwarts the day before the new term started.

"Is this the point where I should ask about grades?" Harrison asked the girls. "I do remember asking about them before."

"I'm doing fine," Lucy said. "Severus would kick my arse otherwise."

"And I wouldn't?" Harry asked.

"You're too nice."

"Kick her arse twice for me," Harry said to Severus.

"What does fine mean?" Harrison wondered. "I thought I was doing fine in school, but that didn't mean I actually did fine in school."

"You were adequate," Draco told him.

"So vague, Draco. _So_ vague."

"You didn't get any Trolls, so you weren't a complete failure in class."

"Well, I've got EE in most subjects," Lucy said.

"What does that mean?" Angel asked.

"That she does well," Elise replied. "Angel is doing well in school, too. Her reading comprehension is higher than that of her classmates. Her teachers think it's very sweet that her guardian reads to her still."

"They think I'm sweet?" Harrison wondered, and shuddered. "That sounds _awful_."

"You're completely bonkers, Uncle Harrison," Angel corrected. "But also nice. It's kind of weird. Can we open our presents after breakfast?"

"Ask Elise."

"Can we open our presents after breakfast, Elise?"

"Yes, you can," Elise said.

Harrison didn't know how it happened, but the living room was always crammed with gifts. Mostly because he bought gifts for everyone. He actually went out of his way to get everyone something that they actually would enjoy. He did wonder if it made him soft, but he'd been doing it for ten years already and he didn't feel soft.

Just… his family deserved gifts in his opinion.

And he kept getting gifts too! He wouldn't admit to it easily, but he liked gifts. He liked them very much, and he wasn't going to read too much into that.

Elise handed over a few letters as he was finishing up breakfast. One was from Voldemort, but all formal and Ministry of Magic-like. Harrison didn't care for politics still, and probably never would.

However, he knew there were things he just had to accept. Like going to the Ministry. Let people see him, and know he was real and still very much alive. Because if he didn't, people would start to say he was fake. Like they always did.

The letter penned out a gathering. A gala of sorts, for tomorrow night.

"What reply should I write?" Elise asked.

"I'll do it," Harrison said. "Two of you lot are coming with me tomorrow; if I have to be bored, so do two of you."

"I can go!" Ywgraine said. "Can I bring an axe?"

" _No_ ," both Harrison and Elise said.

"Aaw," she pouted. "But I like axes."

"I like pulling out people's hearts, but I don't get to do that tomorrow night," Harrison replied.

"Can I take a dagger then?"

"A small one," Harrison conceded. "Now, let's not think about boring stuff like that. Presents?"

It was all very domestic, he realized as he let Angel and Lucy pull him to the living room. All very tame compared to history's Nightmare Lord. It really was no surprise that this modern world thought him a fake, but at the same time, wasn't everything more grim and violent back in the day? Did they think ancient lords like him never adapted, or changed?

He knew he had mellowed out compared to his early days. But those early days were rather depressing to look back on, and something Harrison didn't care to repeat. If he was more around now, people would probably adapt to how he was today as a dark lord.

Certainly capable of violence and murder, but knowing when to rein those urges in. Well, most of the time.

"We need a bigger living room," he heard Lucian say as the servants began to file inside.

"Gods, no, don't give master any idea to get even bigger packages to make a bigger living room just as cramped as this one," Joanne replied.

Fred and George were already sorting gifts out, Harrison's slanting handwriting identifying which gift went to whom. Of course, he was receiving gifts too but Harrison liked to watch others open theirs.

Harrison settled back in an armchair to watch. The Weasley twins were teasing Harry, or holding Angel's gifts above their hands which made them laugh for a few moments before Angel launched herself at them. Having trained by climbing Harrison for nearly ten years, she had no trouble climbing them despite their shrieking and moving around.

It was a familiar scene that Harrison surprisingly didn't get tired of. He leaned his head against his hand, a smile on his face. Everything, in this moment, was just fine. More than fine. It was wonderful.

People would continue to forget what he could do. Or they would ignore it. They would call him a fake. Part of a group that had persisted for so many years. There would always be excuses, Harrison knew that. Even if he started coming to the Ministry more often, even if he let himself be seen in public more often, there would always be someone who called him a liar. A pretend lord.

But that was okay. He would be on this earth for a very long time still. He would be there to remind people who he was. That no matter how long the peace lasted, the Nightmare Lord was still amongst them. Ready to strike fear into their very hearts, and send them off to the afterlife.

The Nightmare Lord would be their monster in the dark for centuries to come, and he would enjoy it.

 _End_

* * *

And here is where we say goodbye to the Nightmare Lord for the time being. Thank you all for sticking with me.

There will be more stories about the Nightmare Lord in the future. One-shorts or longer ones, I don't know. I have one idea already, but who knows how long it will take for that one to be written?

But at some point, you'll get to see how Harrison is doing and what problems he might have to face.

The _Nightmare Man_ -series might end up on AO3 as well, I have been contemplating that. If so, the chapters will most likely get a brush-up by me, perhaps correct some grammar or stuff like that. If I upload the series to AO3, I'll post it on my profile page.

Until then,

Tiro


End file.
